So Say We All
by StarLiner42
Summary: With help from the rebel Cylons, the Colonial fleet has finally found Earth, but what they find on the surface is a primitive culture that has never heard of Kobol or Caprica. With the bulk of the Cylon fleet behind them, how can humanity hope to survive?
1. Chapter 1

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I have no idea what is possessing me to write a crossover between two shows that have nothing in common, but its been bothering me since the mid-season finale. We wont get one new episode of Battlestar Galactica till 2000 frakking nine, I want to do something to pass the time. This is based on, of course, them finding earth with the help of the rebel cylons, at the end of season 4.

The story takes place in an alternate universe of Battlestar Galactica, where instead of encountering the Earth they found, they find the avatar Earth.

Three years had passed since the Fall of the Twelve Colonies. The war was over in less then a day, the Cylons had murdered twenty three billion people who called the Twelve Colonies of Kobol home, and barely fifty thousand people survived. It was after that war _Galactica _and humanities remnants decided that Earth, a planet spoken of only in myth, would become there new home. Since then innumerable events have taken place. From the miracle of finding another surviving battlestar, settling for a year on a new planet, to finding a very unlikely ally a group of rebel Cylons, humanity has finally reached the promise land. And Earth, will become home.

William Adama the admiral of the Colonial Fleet, the one who had saved them countless times from Cylon attack, Laura Roslin, the president who worked tirelessly to keep the fleet alive and give the people hope, And D'anna Biers, the number three a Cylon model, sat in the raptor that was taking them to the blue planet below. Starbuck, an ace viper pilot, was flying the Raptor.

The small craft was one of many landing all over the planet, Human and Cylon alike. For the past three years, Galactica had been on desperate search looking for the lost thirteenth tribe. At last, they had been reunited with there brothers and sisters.

Nobody said anything to eachother. Nobody could really believe what was happening. They had been on the run for so long, finally reaching a place they could call home seemed impossible. But here it is, Earth, the planet that's existence was unlikely at best, impossible at worse, that will become humanities new hope.

Roslin looked at Adama, Thinking of what had happened over there journey. From there decision to run with what was left of humanity, the destruction of the resurrection ship, finding Pegasus, settling New Caprica, the alliance with the rebel Cylons, and all the friends she had made and lost.

"So what do we do now?" She asked him. She had been waiting for this moment for years, since the tragedy that was the destruction of the 12 colonies of man. She was just… overwhelmed with happiness. Earth wasn't just a myth, it wasn't just some story written by some lunatic. It was real, and it was there new home.

Adama, who was looking down at the floor, no doubt lost in his own day dreams, looked up at her. "What do you mean?" He had been having flashbacks of the day there fight for the survival of there species began.

"Well, how do settle? New Caprica wasn't exactly pleasant, and we had more supplies back then" Roslin was

"There's also the matter of dividing land and territory rights." D'anna joined the conversation. "How are we to interact with you?" D'anna wasn't human, she was Cylon. She was one of 12 models created to look, act, feel, think, and mimic humans in every possible way.

"I'm sure we'll think of something" Adama responded. He started looking at the floor of the raptor again. _It's real…. _He thought to himself. He looked back at Roslin, still smiling, and thought of the moments they had been through. Roslin was just a school teacher three years ago, and Adama, alongside _Galactica, _was meant to retire.

Sevreal minutes passed before the raptor started to slow down and touch down on the planets surface.

"We made it!" Starbuck said. "We Fraking made it!" She had never been this happy since she was at her home on Caprica. She spoke through her headset. "This is raptor 443 to Galactica, we have successfully landed" Starbuck was the callsign of the ace viper pilot Kara Thrace, who had saved the lives of the people of the fleet on more then one occasion. If it weren't for her, they would never have made it to Earth.

Adama looked up at Roslin again. "Lets go." It was impossible not to tell the two were excited, Starbuck had to stay behind and

It took less then a minute for the raptor to be emtied, and everybody on the surface. They had landed in a valley, with few trees, and grass all around them. Starbuck bent down and touched the grass. "Feels just like home" She said.

Roslin, Adama, and D'anna walked up a nearby hill while Starbuck listened to the descriptions the other landing parties gave.

The three continued walking up the hill. They were almost to the top, when Adama stopped Roslin for a moment. D'anna keeped walking.

"Looks just like Caprica, doesn't it?" He said to her.

"Yes" She said. She took a deep breath, taking in the fresh air. "The grass, the sun, everything." He let the breath out. "It's beautiful, isn't It?

"Lets hope it stays this way. I don't want any chrome toasters ruining it"

Roslin smiled, and let out a small laugh "So say we all"

The two continued talking while D'anna reached the top of the hill. She went cold when she did. "Roslin, Adama." She said, not looking away, "I think you should see this"

The two stopped talking and ran up to where D'anna was. Below them, coming quickly, was a group of ten people, all wearing red and black armor, with strange symbols resembling fire on them.

"We better leave, now." Adama said.

The three were just about to turn around and start running when one of the ten soldiers sent a bolt of fire at them that just missed Roslin's hair. The three froze, not believing what had just happen.

"Halt!" He yelled at them. The three did as they were told, and in seconds the ten soldiers surrounded them. "We saw your… Whatever it was try to attack us. Being anywhere near the Fire nation Captiol without proper authorization is a capitol offense. We already have men that have secured your airship, and your coming with us for questioning."

_People? Here? Did they just... shoot fire at us? __._ Adama thought. And he knew they would have more then likely captured or killed Kara 'Starbuck' Thrace. Knowing her, though, she had killed at least half a dozen of them by now. Past experience had proven Kara to be very uncooperative with death.

The three were escorted to a giant city, colored much like the armor of the soldiers. All over it, smoke could be seen from various machines. When they walked through the streets of the city, many citizens gave them weird looks or even laughed at there uniforms.

"What's going to happen?" Laura whispered to Adama.

"I don't know, just stay calm, if Galactica doesn't hear from us, they'll do something." He tried to sound reassuring, which seemed to work.

After ten minutes of walking, they arrived at what he assumed was there destination. They were taken to the tallest building in the city, the Fire Nation palace.

--

Well. I think that's enough for now. Please review, so that I know people actually care about this. Suggestions and ways to improve are very useful.


	2. Chapter 2

Colonel Saul Tigh stood on the CIC Of the Battlestar _Galactica. _Dozens of people crowded around various consolse and work stations, with a large, central Dradis display in front of where Tigh stood. The CIC was the brain of Galactica, where all ship functions were coordinated. Saul Tigh himself was second in command of the might Battlestar, he had served with Adama for decades. And he, himself, was a Cylon. How, he didn't know, he had known Adama longer then Cylons had skinjobs, and only just barely avoided being tossed out the airlock a day ago. He wanted to go down to the planet, to see the end of four long years of nothing but running and suffering, but he knew somebody had to stay behind and keep the fleet in check.

Speaking of the planet, the comm chatter throughout the fleet had gone through the roof. Celebrations, parties, everything you could imagine. Tens of thousands of people had dropped whatever they were doing and focused all there attention on the planet, waiting for the first transmissions from the surface. What was it like? Was there anybody living there? Not a soul on the fleet was filled with anticipation.

Gaeta, an officer aboard Galactica, walked up to him. Gaeta was a communications officer, in charge of mantaining ship board functions and keeping the higher up officers, like Tigh, informed.

"Sir, were getting the first report back from the raptors and heavy raiders. I think you should see this"

The crewman handed him a piece of paper without corners., something perfectly normal in the fleet. Tigh began reading it. The first two pages were incomprehensible babble to him, atmpepheric charts, water levels, everything you would expect when first charting a planet. The third page caught his eye however.

The crewman spoke. "Some of the teams are reporting intelligent life on the surface. Their primitive compared to us, no space flight, or even electricity." He waited for Tigh to glance at the sheet. "We've counted at least a dozen major cities, and around a hundred smaller villages scattered across the planets major continents."

Tigh keep reading the paper, mostly early observations from people. "They must be the thirteenth tribe Roslin hasn't shut up about the last four years. Do we know anything about them?

"Not much, just a few conversations worth of Intel and a few pictures, but some odd reports that are probably misunderstandings.

Tigh raised his eyebrow and looked up from the paper, "What kind of _misunderstandings? _

"Proably just some younger pilots frakking around with the comm, they can't be true."

"I asked you a question, what do we have?"

Gaeta rolled his eyes. "Well, sir, we have u_nconfirmed _reports that some of the native population is capable of... well... manipulating elements. With there hands. Moving Earth, Water..." he paused. "Well, as you can see we have nothing of much use. Your orders?

Saul decided Adama would know what to do "Get the Admiral and President on the line."

"Thats the other problem. The raptor with Adama, Roslin, D'anna, and Kara Thrace hasn't reported back."

Tigh stopped looking at the paper and looked the crewman in the eye "What! Why didn't you tell me sooner!"

"You were reading, sir."

"Frak it. Why haven't they reported back?"

"Were not sure. Maye there's a storm going on and they can't get through the interference?

"Kara isn't stupid, at least when it comes to flying, she wouldn't fly a raptor anywhere near a storm."

"A problem with there radio?"

"We check those raptors once a week, and every time before they launch. There's no way."

"Maybe… they forgot?"

Tigh thought of all the possibilities. "Well, give them another twenty minutes. If nothing comes up, get somebody in a raptor and go check. And this time, bring guards."

"Understood." Gaeta walked away.

Tigh looked back at the Dradis. _Bill you idiot, what have you gotten yourself into now? _

--

Before entering the tall building, the guards searched through all three of them for any weapons. They took anything they could use to contact Galactica and there guns.

They were put in handcuffs, or at least something similar to them, and dragged inside.

"Where are you taking us?" Roslin asked the guards.

"Shut up and keep walking."

Adama looked the guard in the eye. "Don't talk to her like that."

"And whats and old man going to do about it?"

Adama looked at the guards weapons, primitive compared to colonial firearms. He knew that if they didn't check in, Galactica would try to find them, and they would track the radio signals to here.

"You'll see." He said.

The guard smiled "Sure I will."

The three were dragged into a small room. Several more guards were inside. Kara Thrace was there, tied to a chair, with blood on her hands, on her face, and was burned in several places.. She looked beat up.

Adama started to run over to her, but was held back by the guards. "What did you do to her?" He said to the guard in the angriest voice he could make without yelling.

One of the guards in the room spoke. "She killed at least four of us before we managed to knock her out. She should have come peacefully."

Adama looked at Kara "She needs help." Adama pleaded

Kara smiled at Adama, trying to let him know she was alright.

"Shut it Adama." D'anna said.

The three were dragged into some chairs behind a desk, and handcuffed to the chair. Starbuck turned to Adama. "Who are they?"

"I don't know. Just do what they say, for now."

"This is just fraking great." She rolled her eyes.

Somebody walked through the door the three came through. He wasn't wearing armor, but normal clothes. He looked older then all of the guards, almost the same age as Adama. He sat down in a chair opposite to the side of the four.

"Which of you is in charge?" He asked.

Adama and Roslin looked at each other. "I am" Roslin said. "My name is Laura Roslin."

"Good. My name is Tasho, high ranking general of the Fire Nation."

"Good for you." Roslin said.

"Now then. The air nation has been extinct for over one hundred years, yet we spooted your air craft fly over our city. Who are you?"

Roslin thought of her response. _The who have been extinct? She thought._

"Well…" She began. "It's a long story."

"We have time."

"Your not going to believe me."

"Try me."

Who would? She thought. Had these people even heard of Kobol? Was it just some random star in the sky to them? And who would believe a tail of space men coming to them, who would believe that crap?

She had no time to make up some story, and she couldn't just be quiet. She had her own questions, to. Did these people actually shoot fire at them nack at the hill? _No, that's impossible_. But these people…. they were different somehow. She had no choice, she had to tell them the truth and hope for the best.

"I'm waiting." Tasho said impatiently

Roslin sighed. "Where do I begin…"


	3. Chapter 3

"So we used our FTL to jump to this planet with the rebel cylons, sent out teams to check it out, and here we are." Roslin was just finishing her story. Everything from what the 12 colonies were, the first Cylon war, the second surprise attack, everything over the past three years, to what she was doing now. She had been interrupted afew times. He asked what FTL drives were, how they moved ships to the stars, and many other questions that Roslin, or anybody in the fleet for that matter, would have found stupid.

Tasho looked at Roslin. She noticed it wasn't a look of pure disbelief, he didn't look like he would break out laughing, but just seemed to be taking everything in and thinking of what to make of it.

"Well." Tasho began, "You know how to tell a good story, that's for sure."

"So you don't believe me?" Roslin asked. She expected as much. She looked down, thinking of what to do next. _That was so stupid. There going to think were morons._

"If you were in my position, would you?"

"I don't know."

"But your story does have afew things going for it." Roslin looked back up to him in surprise.

"Like what?" Her tone of voice had changed.

"Well, nobody from this planet would be stupid enough to fly one craft of any kind directly above the most well guarded city known to exist. And the materials used to build your… 'Raptor,' as you call it, are not like anything we've ever seen, Fire or Air nation. We had a few Fire benders test out the metal, nobody could melt it, not our best people, and our weapons didn't even dent it."

"So you do believe me?"

"I don't know what to believe." Tasho looked at D'anna.

"So It's not human?"

D'anna spoke up. _"It_ is a _She."_

"Mabye we'll have afew of our engineering take a look at her later. We could use technology like this."

"If you touch me, I swear I will-"

"D'anna." Roslin was trying to stop her from getting them killed.

There was a silence for afew seconds.

"Guards, escort them to the nearby prison a few blocks down. Humor there story, give them somehistory books to read." Tasho stood up and started walking towards the door.

"So your just going to keep us there!" Starbuck said.

"Kara." Adama said in a worried voice.

"No, they _have _to listen, because if they don't-" One of the guards put his spear right under Starbuck's nose.

"As I said, have them escorted." Tasho had a more serious tone now.

"She's right." Adama said. He looked Tasho right in the eye, giving him the most intimidating look he could. "If you don't let us contact Galactica, there are going to be some very powerful and very angry people here very soon."

Tasho looked Adama back in the eye, and stood closer to him. "Oh, really?" He said in the same tone of voice as Adama. "Your people try anything and all four of you will die. And besides, we captured you easily enough, didn't we?" Adama shut his mouth.

"After loosing four of your men." Starbuck spoke up again.

"Shut it Thrace." Roslin said. After that, all four were taken out of the room.

"You there." Tasho said to one of the guards." "Laura mentioned something called the Lords of Kobol. I want you to get somebody to go through the archives and try to find any references to Kobol, Caprica, or skyships."

"Yes, Sir."

--

Tigh was getting very frustrated. _Bill never goes this long without checking it, Even Starbuck isn't that irresponsible._ He thought. A tracking device put on all raptors, and sometimes vipers, had showed it had moved into some kind of city. DRADIS showed roads, things that looked like buildings, and the raptor inside one of them.

He was about to make an order to send another Raptor, when he heard something over the intercomm.

"_Attention Rear Admiral Tigh, The Cylons wish to speak to you."_

Tigh Sighed. Adama would have to wait. He grabbed the Michrophone. "About what?"

"The raptor carrying the number three, D'anna, is missing."

"We hadn't noticed," Tigh said, in an annoyed voice. "Tell them I'm on my way" Tigh hung up the microphone and started heading for the hangar bay.

--

Tigh walked into the hangar bay. A heavy raider, a Cylon troop transport, had landed. Two centurions and a number eight model, named Boomer, was there to represent the Cylons.

"I'm sure you know the raptor carrying the number 3 has gone missing." the eight said.

"We were just about to send a search team."_Damnit, they dragged me all the way over here to tell me something I already know?_

"I'm also sure you know the raptor has been moved, certainly intentionally, to some type of facility built by the inhabitants of the planet."

"Yes, but we don't know anything about why."

"So we can only assume that these inhabitants are hostile and have captured the team, and force must be used to get them back."

This was an action Tigh had already considered, but decided to risky. The inhabitants could kill all four of them before they could find them. "It's to risky."

"These people aren't as advanced as us. They don't have the kind of communication network to keep up to date at all times. If we sent in a team, we would have stealth on our side."

The eight was right. They had almost every advantage.

"One of your raptors will be sent down to the planet some distance from the city. You will send a team to infiltrate them, and find the team. Once they have been located, we will send a heavy raider with centurions to quickly take them. There weapons should be ineffective against them." The eight had apparently thought this through.

"What if something goes wrong?" Tigh was really doubting this plan.

"It wont as long as only competent people are sent. We don't know what they people down there are doing, Your admiral and president could be being tortured as we speak. We need to send the raptor, now."

Tigh thought hard. So many things could go wrong. The team could be discovered, the second raptor found, it could all go wrong. But the eight was right, they don't know what the people on the planets were doing to them, even if Adama and the rest were still alive.

"DRADIS shows It's a pretty big city. We don't know if it's strictly military, there could be civilians down there!"

"They will be acceptable looses. Remember that one of our own is down there to, we don't have to cooperate with you. We could send a raider down and kill anybody we see until the four are given back. This is your only chance to minimize causalities."

He thought for what seemed like forever. Then, he walked over to a wall and picked up a telephone.

"Rear Admiral Tigh to CIC, get me a raptor team, now."

--

The four were escorted by about a dozen guards outside of the building, and into a much smaller, much less pleasant looking prison. They were each taken to a changing room and had there clothing changed into rags, making absolutely sure nobody was hiding anything. They were dragged into a cell, about half the size of the room they were in before, and much darker with one small candle for lighting. It smelled, to.

A metal door was shut, and they were locked in. Several minutes passed before anybody said anything.

"So how long until Galactica sends a search team?" Starbuck finally said.

Adama looked up, glad the silence was broken. "Soon, if they haven't already. I know Tigh, he won't think it's just some random malfunction."

"Good, the shorter we spend here the better."

"It must be horrifying for them. Discovering a whole other civilization they haven't even heard of." Roslin said.

"This kind of paranoia will get them nuked." D'anna said.

Roslin sat down on the floor and picked up one of the books on the ground, one of the history books Tasho had so thoughtfully given to them. She opened the book, using what little light there was to read. The book was obviously biased towards the fire nation, displaying them as heroes and Saviors, and the other empires as greedy and evil.

There was some good information in the book, Roslin learned the names of the other two nations, Earth and Water. There was information of spiritual beliefs, the Avatar, various religions(Although the Fire Nation considered all but its own Blasphemy). She opened up a book that contained starmaps and went searching for any familiar constellations.

….

_;_


	4. Chapter 4

I know the last chapter was pretty crappy, but ill try to make it up with this one. Thank you for reviewing the story, as long as people actually care about I'm happy!

Oh, and about the people from BSG meeting the 'Gaang,' I plan to have them meet up, in a chapter not to far from now

--

Doctor Gaius Baltar was eating a feast with the new friends he had made. Him, Lee 'Apollo' Adama , and Karl 'Helo' Agathon. They had arrived in a raptor, near a Gemenon Traveler that had also landed nearby.

When they had landed, the inhabitants had initially greeted them with caution and hostility. However, once they both learned neither side wanted to fight, they managed to relax. Since then, Baltar learned that this city named 'Omashu,' an Earth Nation city. Most of the people on the Gemenon Traveler had been looking around the city. In the shops, houses, and other buildings. Baltar, Lee, and Helo had been invited to a feast in the capitol building, by who was apparently the king of the city, 'King Bumi.'

Baltar had noticed that the inhabitants were far more primitive then the rag tag fleet, but managed to find them… amusing. He was particularly interested in the way that they seemed to control the movement of rocks and other elements related to Earth. The feast was about to be served.

A plate that was made almost entirely of rock with food on it floated and sat gently down in front of Gaius Baltar. He didn't recognize any of the food, but tried some type of yellow-orange fruit on his plate. He liked it, fresh fruit was a luxury on the rag tag fleet.

"So." King Bumi said. "You live in the stars? Sounds exciting."

"You have no idea." Baltar said to him.

Lee tried using the Earth Nations version of silver wear to pick up some kind of salad-like thing. He tried it, and worked hard not to gag it out. "So is this Earth Nation a very widespread? How many cities do you have?" Lee thought that these people might be allies to assist in settling on the planet.

"Were growing smaller, no thanks to the war."

All three of the people from Galactica looked up. "What war?" Baltar asked.

"Your from the stars and you haven't heard of it?"

"No."

"The war that the Fire Nation ruthlessly attacked us, destroyed the air nation, and is hunting all of us down?"

"Sounds like a good friend of ours." Helo was thinking of the Cylons.

"It doesn't matter right now. Hey, can you show us the trick with the talking box again?"

Baltar sighed. _How can these people be amused by such simple things? _"Sure. Lee, can you please go into the other room?"

Lee put his fork down, thankful for a reason to leave the food alone. "Yeah." He grabbed his radio from the table and walked out of sight. Baltar picked his radio up from out of his bag and placed it on the table. Lee's voice came from it.

"_Hello. My name is Lee Adama."_

The crowd of people looked at the little box, wondering how the voice was there.

"_I'm not in a box."_

"How does it work?" Bumi asked.

"It would take a long time to explain."

"_Bla bla bla." _Lee really couldn't think of what to say. He walked into the room, then spoke through the radio again. You could hear his voice twice. The people in the room clapped.

"Hey, do you think I could ride one of those fancy little air things you came in?" Bumi asked if he could ride in the raptor.

"Well-" Baltar was about to speak before the communications officer from the traveler came in. "We just got a transmission from Galactica. They want all raptor teams back now."

"Why?" Baltar asked

"I don't know, but we have to leave."

"So soon?" Bumi asked

"Ill try to convince my dad to let us come back. Mabye we can make some sort of deal." Adama said.

--

A raptor had been readied for launch on board _Galactica. _Tigh had decided to slightly alter the Cylons plan. If they decided to send down centurions, there would more then likely be civilian casualties. So instead of sending an entire heavy raider full of them, there would be three humans and two centurions send down. The humans would go into the town, keep a low profile, (Tigh assumed people would think the solders were wearing weird clothes) and break them out. If they needed back up, the centurions would come to the rescue.

To ensure nobody on the planet would see the raptor coming, it had been quickly painted a light-blue color to better blend in to the sky. It wouldn't be perfect, but people would have to look harder for it. It would also land several miles from the city, just to be safe.

Karl 'Helo' Agathon was going to lead the raptor team. The two soilders and centurions escorting him were in the raptor, and the mission was about to begin.

_Raptor 449 this is Galactica, you are clear to launch. _The CIC Had granted the Raptor authorization to begin the mission.

"Roger that Galactica, launching now." Helo said over the raptors comm systems. The small, blue craft slowly rose up in the hangar, then headed straight out and into space.

On the surface, the three exited the Raptor. There was no way of knowing weather or not the people on the planet had seen them. But if anybody came close to the raptor, the Cylons would handle them.

It took at least half an hour to get to the gate of the city. A few people had noticed them, but never really paid them much attention. Helo looked at the other two in the team.

"Alright, you know the plan. Try to find out where the raptor and the people in it are. We don't know what there doing to the president, admiral, Starbuck, and D'anna, so hurry up, but don't get yourself noticed."

The other two nodded, and the three split up into different directions.

Helo walked around a street in the city. Some people stared at him, a few even laughed at what he was wearing. It didn't keep him as low profile as he wanted, but at least there weren't armed guards surrounding him. Helo looked around the city. Most of the building were small, nothing compared to Caprica City back on the twelve colonies. Almost all of them were one story tall, with the exception of afew Helo guessed were hotels, shops, or government buildings.

Eventually he decided that if prisoners were being held, they would be in a well guarded place. Given how he expected people to react to technology like raptors, guns, computers, and radios, they would be somewhere well guarded. He decided to look near the biggest building in the city: The palace.

The city became more and more crowded as he approached it. He got more and more weird looks, one person even stopped him to ask where he was from. He answered "Around here." And keep going. Finally, he noticed what looked like barracks, prisoner of war camps, and other military installations. He decided to ask a person where he was. He walked up to some random women on the streets.

"Excuse me." He said to her, "I'm new here, where am I?

The women looked at him. She looked him over a few times, noticing his clothes. "You obviously are. Wearing that will get you arrested by the more strict guards. What are you wearing?"

Helo didn't know what to say, he didn't have time to think of something. "Me and some friends are in a play, these are our customs."

"We don't have plays, unless approved by the government." Helo wanted to ask why this was, but decided that that might make her suspicious.

"And with that skyship that appeared not to long ago, strange things have happened. Me and my friends saw some guards with four people dressed weird going to the prison."

_That must be our people._ "What prison?"

"Why do you ask?"

"I'm curious."

"It's down about two blocks from here, its red and gray, you can't miss it."

"Ah, thank you." Helo walked away. He saw the women walk over to a guard and start talking, he hoped he didn't do something to get them all killed. He walked behind a building hidden from view, and pulled out his radio.

"_This is Helo to the team, I've located the building where our people are being held. Meet at a street marked 'Olio lane' Near the center of town.." _He put the radio away and started walking towards the street again.

--

Roslin looked through the star maps for the constellations she saw at the Tomb of Athena more then a year ago. So far, she hadn't seen any, but continued searching anyway.

The other three had gotten bored, and picked up there own books. Starbuck was reading one marked _'A history of Bending' _That described how the first benders of each nation first learned there skill. The three could hear Starbuck laughing at what was in the book more then once.

"They don't honestly think this is real." Starbuck said, amused.

Adama looked up from a book he was reading. "Back at the hill, some guards managed to find us. Before we could run they shoot some kind of…. Fire at us."

"So people can shoot fire and move earth and water because they want to?"

"I don't know what to think."

The prison door opened. Tasho and several guards walked in. "I did some looking around about your story Laura." He said. "Our history makes one or two references to a land where the art of bending was originally forged, and the first humans spread. This place was known as Kobol. Sound familiar?"

"I've been there. I told you about it."

"Yes, but for all we know, you looked Kobol up in a history book. But this is not all I came in here for. We tested some of the equipment you had with you. Your weapons pierced our finest armor, killed one our men who was playing with it."

"So you believe me."

"There is only one way to be sure. I want to see you and D'anna."

D'anna looked at him. "For what!"

"You will see."

"When will they be back?"

"They will be back if there story is true. If it isn't, we'll see. Lets go."

--

Helo and the two other men from Galactica were gathered around a quiet part of town, making a plan to storm the prison.

"From what we know," Helo began, "Our men are being held here." He showed them a part of a map he drew while waiting for them to arrive. "Our job is to break in and get them out. Now, something like this is going to be heavily guarded. But they don't have real time communications, and they don't have DRADIS. If we take a few of them out quietly, nobody will notice."

"We can't just walk in." One of the solders said.

"I know. The plan is to sneak up behind here." Helo pointed to a section of the map, between 2 buildings and a wall. "There aren't any watch towers in plan view, and the buildings should give us some cover. The plan is to blow a hole in the building, get our people, and get back to the raptor."

"How will we get in and out without every fraking guard in the city coming to kill us?"

"The Cylons are going to stage a little distraction. They will fly the raptor close to the ground. At that distance, it should be very easy to spot even with the new paint. They don't have to do much, just being here will cause the guards to run towards it."

"Wont they just move more to the prison to make sure nobody breaks in?"

"As I said, no real time communication. Were counting on any guards going to investigate the raptor before the order to more heavily guard the prison comes in."

"That doesn't give us much time."

"Were going to have to move fast, lets go." Helo and the two soldiers grabbed there supplies, and started heading for the prison.

--

Roslin, D'anna, Tasho, and five guards walked into some kind of mechanical room. There were various parts and machines lying about, and some kind of metal bed in the middle.

"This is normally an interrogation room. We changed it a little bit to suit this occasion." Tasho began.

"What are you going to do?" Roslin said, worrying.

"You said that D'anna wasn't a human, she was… What was that you called them?""Cylons. But she's been build to look like a human, there's no difference."

"You can't copy a person. There will be some difference." A man walked into the room. He had stains, possibly from oil, on his shirt. "This is Verik, our mechanic. He will investigate D'anna to determine whether or not she, or it, is Human."

"_What?" _D'anna yelled. "And how are you going to do that!"

Verik walked up to D'anna. "Well, first were going to check breathing, heart rate, and other human, er, stuff.""And when its all normal?"Tasho spoke. "Since Roslin here seems so fond of story, we will take more drastic measures.""Like?"

"Cut her open, if necessary."

Roslin gasped. "You would _kill _her?"

"You continue to say your story is true, we won't have to go so far."

D'anna thought of what to say. She was _not _going to let them cut her open like some kind of specimen. Then she thought of a plan. _Roslin didn't tell these fire people everything about humanoid Cylons._

"_Now, if you will please set on this bed." Tasho said, gesturing to the metal bed in the middle of the room. One of the guards started to drag her there. D'anna pushed him away._

"_Get your hands off me!" She said. D'anna punched him in the face. The guard walked over and punched her. She gave the most convincing act of falling over helplessly as she could. Two of the five guards in the room picked her up and started dragging her to the bed._

_She continued to make herself look beaten for afew seconds. Suddenly, she threw one of the guards across the room, and pushed the other into a wall. The three remaining guards rushed in the take her down. D'anna picked up a spear from one of the fallen guards, and threw it into one of there chests. It went right through him and out the other side. He fell down dead._

_One of the guards punched D'anna in the face, as hard as he could. She fell back. D'anna was punched two more times. One of the guards took there spear and was about to thrust it into D'anna's chest._

_Roslin, thinking quickly, ran to the second fallen guard and grabbed his weapon. She threw it at the soilder about to kill D'anna, distracting him long enough for D'anna to use her feet to knock him down, and punch him several times in the head, knocking out if not killing him. The fifth guard ran away._

_D'anna looked at Tasho, who was looking in shock at what just happened. "Oh, Roslin forgot to mention. Cylons are far stronger then the average human."_

_Roslin and D'anna both picked up spears from the fallen guards. D'anna walked over to Tasho, and held it right under his neck._

_Roslin spoke to Tasho. "We don't want bloodshed. All we want is to get back to Galactica, if you want we will leave you alone but please, stop, this doesn't have to end in more lives."_

"_More guards will be here soon. You can be hurt like a normal human, can't you?"_

_D'anna moved the spear closer to Tasho's neck. "Take us back to the cell. Were getting Adama and Kara, then were getting out."_

_--_


	5. Chapter 5

Ok then. Ill try to make the people of Galactica meet the Gaang in the next chapter. Thank you again for reviewing, as long as people actually care about this story I'll keep writing!

--

Helo and the rescue team made there way towards the prison where the believed the four of there people were being held. They contacted the Cylons aboard the raptor and briefed them on the plan. They didn't talk, centurions never did, but Helo radioed the Baseship and was told they understood.

The three stood about a block away from the prison. The plan was for the raptor to fly very low to the ground, low enough to have people have to move out of the way to avoid getting smashed over the window. It would attarct the attention of, Helo hopped, every person in the city, long enough for the three to rush inside, get there people, and get out. The raptor would mostly fly around, but the Cylons might fire off a missile or gun at a building to gather attention.

The plan to get in once they were distracted was simple: There was a large metal door they had to break to get into the prison, but the metal used was weak enough to break with an explosive standard teams carried. They would blast the door open, look for them, and get out as soon as possible. They would worry about the missing raptor later, it was doubtful they could even figure out how to use it.

"Alright," Helo began, "The Cylons should be here any second now. Montie, do you have the charge?"

"Yeah, It's good to go." One of the men said.

"Good. You plant the charge, me and Jacob will cover you."

While they were talking, they heard a scream from across the street. Seconds later, a raptor painted blue started flying across the street. Somebody shopping at a nearby buying cabbages from a shop ducked just before the raptor ran straight into the stand, destroying it. Sevreal people were screaming, others were running towards the nearest building. The raptor sharply turned straight up just before it would have ran into a wall, it fired a flare across the sky that seemed to get people attention.

"That's our cue, lets go!" Helo yelled.

--

Tasho was leading Roslin and D'anna to the cell with Adama and Starbuck. He had a spear pointed to his neck the whole time by D'anna. The guards weren't there, probably taking a break or something.

Tasho walked up to the barred door and grabbed a key from his pocket. He used it to unlock the door.

Adama and Starbuck stood up while Tasho and the two walked in.

"I'm guessing things didn't go as you planned?" Adama asked Tasho, with a small smile on his face. Tasho didn't say anything.

"It won't be long until somebody see's the bodies of afew guards we had to kill or knock out, we have to move quickly." Roslin said.

"Bring Tasho, we could use him as a hostage if the need comes."

"Where's our raptor?" Starbuck asked, in a very angry voice.

"I, I don't know, it's probably in another city by now."

"Just great." She said.

"Lets go" D'anna gestured to the door.

--

The raptor continued to cause even the guards to run for cover. One of the members of the rescue team ran towards the prison door, and placed a small grey bar on the ground next to it. He lit a fuse sticking from it, and ran towards the other two.

"Duck!" He yelled. Seconds later, the bar exploded, leaving a large hole where the door was. Helo and the two ran inside. There was a desk, with one fire nation citizen, defiantly not a guard, sitting in it. There were also three guards.

The person at the desk yelled. "Who are you! Guards, get in here!"

One of the guards shoot a ball of fire at one of the three. He looked at him in surprise, so much that he didn't even dodge. The ball of fire hit him right in the arm, tearing a hole in his lightly armored shirt.

"What the _Frak_!" Helo said. He aimed his weapon and guard and opened fire. The bullets went right through him, he fell to the floor dead.

Another guard ran up to Helo, punching him as hard as he could. He fell back while the burned soilder hit him over the the head with his gun. The third tried running down a flight of stairs, only to be gunned down by Helo.

"Did he just shoot fraking _fire _at us?" Helo asked, almost yelling.

"Yes he did!" The burnt soilder felt the mark the fire made.

"Whatever, we'll talk about it later, lets move!" the three ran down the flight of stairs to what they assumed were prison cells.

--

Almost two hundred feet below the ground, the five were making there way to the outside, or what Tasho said was the outside.Adama felt the floor shake. "What was that?"

"I don't know." Tasho said in a paniced voice.

Starbuck looked up. "An explosive? I know raptor teams usually carry them."Adama looked at Tasho, "I told you they would come."

--

Five fire nation soilders stood between the rescue team and the start of a hallway to several cells. The second they had seen them, two shoot more balls of fire at the men. This time, they dodged them.

The three run back several meters up the flight of stairs, giving them some cover. "Montie, Jacob, cover me." He grabbed a type of Grenade from his bag.

The two ran down the stairs again, fireing there guns. One of them fell down, dead, while another was hit once in the arm, and grabbed it in pain.

Helo ran as faced as he could down the stairs, and threw the grenade at the guards, all behind a table they pushed over for cover. "Back up!" He yelled.

The three ran up the stairs, while the four guards examined the device.

One of the guards spoke. "They really expect us to be scared by this little t-" The grenade exploded, all four were scattered, one in several pieces, around the room with the table in chunks.

The three ran into the hallway, taking caution in case of any more guards. They looked in some cells, some empty and some with a few people in them. They continued there search down another flight of stairs.

--

The sound of gunshots and another explosion were easily heared by the four trying to escape, and most likely any other guards in the building.

"What kind of weapons are those?" Tasho asked.

"The good kind. Now keep moving." D'anna poked him with the spear.

They had walked about fifty feet up, getting closer to the ground.

"Were not far." Tasho said.

--

One of the guards had managed to escape before he was shoot down, probably going to get help. The rescue team had gone down another two flights of stairs, and taken at least another dozen people down.

"This is to easy." Montie, one of the soilders, said.

"There primitive, expect it to be." Helo said. He reloaded his ammo clip.

The thee heard several pairs of footsteps down a flight of stairs.. "Come on, both of you get on either side." The three each leaned on one side of the wall, waiting for them.

--

Tasho walked up another flight of stairs with his captives. "Four or five more, get re-" He was cut mid sentence when several bullets narrowly missed him, he ducked and placed his hands over his head to cover himself.

"Don't Shoot!" Starbuck yelled. "Don't shoot you frakking morons!"

Helo recognized that voice. "Starbuck?"

"Helo?"

Helo looked at his men. "Stand down." he walked over to the four. "Good to see you sir."

"Nice to see some friendly faces." Adama said to Helo. He shook his hand.

"Whats happening on Galactica?" Adama asked him.

"Planet side teams every where report contact with sentient life. Most of it doesn't appear this hostile, though."

"Guess we just got lucky."

"Sir, this ,may be an odd question, but have you noticed anything, different, about these people?"

"Different how?""Some of them can shoot fire."

Adama remembered somebody shooting fire at them back at the raptor. "Yeah. I don't know how."

"Me neither."

"How are we going to get over here?." Roslin asked. She walked over to Tasho, grabbed one of his hands, and forced him to stand up. D'anna continued pointing a spear at him.

"A raptor piloted by a couple of Cylons will pick us up once were outside."

"Then lets go" Adama said, and started walking up. He stopped when Tasho said something.

"What about me!"

Adama turned around. "We'll let you go when were about to go inside our… airship. Now come on."

--

On the surface, fire nation troops had finally responded to the explosion at the prison. At least twenty people and two of there 'tanks' stood outside the building, waiting. They couldn't explain how there soilders in the 'lobby' of the prison died, two had holes in there chests and another died by being hit over the head with something hard. The fire nation assumed Earth benders.

Helo was leading everybody up the stairs. Finally, they had reached the top.

"Come on." Helo walked inside the front building of the prison. Helo heard an arrow be shoot, less then a second later it appeared inches inside front of him.

"Frak!" He yelled. "Back down!" Helo noticed the large group and vehicles.

Everybody but Helo and the two other members of his team ran back several meters for cover. Helo grabbed a rdaio from his bag.

"Rescue team to Raptor, we need fire cover, now!" He put the radio away, and grabbed his assault rifle.

Starbuck walked up to the three. "Give me a gun." She said.

"We could use another person." He handed her a small pistol from his belt. "The cylons should take care of most of them, then we run out and take down as many as we can."

"Sounds fun."

The blue raptor swooped down from the air. The fire nation soilders on the ground saw it and started scattering. One or two of them shoot balls of fire at it, all bouncing off harmlessly. The raptor shoot a missle at the ground, incinerating one of the tanks and killing off at least a dozen people. It flew back into the air.

"Go!" Helo yelled. The four ran up into the building. They caught the soilders, who were still trying to figure out what the frak just happened, by surprise.

Helo fired his weapon, gunning down a soilder. Two archers fired several arrows, Helo ducked. Behind the desk he saw when he came in the first time. One of the members of his team explosed himself, trying to gun down one of the archers.

"Montie! Get down!" Helo said. Montie fired his weapon, one of the archers fell. The other archer shoot an arrow at Montie, it struck him in the arm, he collapsed on the ground.

"Montie!"

"Cover me." Starbuck grabbed her pistol Helo gave her. Montie layed down fire while she ran out to help Montie.

"Hold on." She said to Montie, who was breathing heavily at this point. The archer fired another arrow at Montie, hitting him in his ribs. He screamed.

"Oh frak, that's it." Starbuck pointed her pistol at the archer, who had taken cover behind a wooden shield. Starbuck fired her weapon three times at the wooden shield. The bullets went straight through it, She heard screams coming from behind it.

Starbuck pulled Montie to the desk where Helo and the other soilder were.

Helo gunned down two more guards, six that he could see remained.

He picked a grenade up from his bag. He threw at the remaining Fire nation tank, it exploded and caused fire to a nearby building.

"Helo to Raptor, get ready for landing." the remaining soilders ran for cover.

"There to strong!" One of them yelled.

The raptor landed in front of the building. "Come on!" Everybody ran to the raptor.

D'anna tossed the spear she had been holding to the ground. "Nice meeting you." She ran inside the raptor with the rest of them. Starbuck dragged Montie inside. The door closed, the raptor started going up, and headed for _Galactica_.

--

In the raptor, Roslin was tending to Montie.

"He looks ok. He should be stable until we reach the fleet." She walked away from him. "I can't believe this is the thirteenth tribe."

Adama sighed. "They can't all be unfriendly. Mabye somebody will help us."

--

The raptor slowly landed in Galactica's Hanger bay, and everybody inside stepped out. A medical team took Montie.

Tigh walked up to Adama. Tigh hugged him. "Bill, your never going to believe what were hearing."

"I think we've seen it."

"I always thought these people were going to be our saviors, protect us, not capture us!"

"Mabye it was an isolated incident." Roslin said, walking up to the two. "While Helo was fighting those, Fire nation people, Helo told me about some city from an empire I read about. The Earth Nation, he tells me there friendly."

"Your not suggesting we go back down? I was planning on ordering every single person back up." Adama said.

"Earth kingdom?" Tigh said in a questioning voice. "Baltar kept saying something about them, he was blabbering something about moving rocks and magic."

"Bending." Roslin said. "Another thing I read about."

"They can control Earth to? We only saw them use fire." Adama said.

Tigh laughed. "Bill, your not honestly telling me that's true. It's magic! It can't be real!"

"Three years ago, we thought Earth wasn't real. But look where we are."

"From what I read." Roslin began, "There are four arts of 'bending,' Fire, what we saw, Earth, what Baltar saw, Water, from something called the water tribe on the poles, and air bending, there people were wiped out. Only some people can bend, and they can only bend one thing, except the avatar."

"The who?" Tigh asked.

"I'm not sure what that is myself, I didn't have time."

While the three were talking, Baltar walked into the hanger and over to them.

"Welcome back admiral.""Thank you. What do you want.?" Adama said. Baltar would never come just to welcome him.

"I know you ran into some minor difficulties, but we ran into these people called the-"

"Earth Kingdom. Roslin told us."

"Yes, but this man we meet, King Bumi, he arranged for us to have a diplomatic meeting at there capitol city!"

Roslin talked to him, useing an angry tone "You made arrangements for a meeting with these people without my permission?"

"Well, yes, but trust me, we could make an alliance, even help them defeat the fire nation in the war."

"War?" Adama said. "We were captured by people Fire nation."

"That would be them."

"There war isn't our problem."

Baltar looked shocked. "Not our problem!"

"Yes. This is there war, not ours."

"If we don't help, millions of innocent people will die. The fire nation attacked them in cold blood, killed millions, no, _billions _of there people. Remember when the Cylons attacked the 12 colonies, tens of billions died. Thousands more died since then. The Cylons attacked us to, without provocation. These people, there in the exact same situation we were!"

"Baltar, listen.""No, _you_ listen!If we don't help, millions more could die, but we could stop them. And besides, were already involved, we were the second we decided to settle here."

All three were silent.

"At least go down to the city, meet these people."

Adama sighed. "Whats this city called?"

Baltar smiled. "Ba Sing Se"

--

Ok then. Next chapter ill try to have the crew of Galactica meet the Gaang. Again, as long as people actually care about this story ill keep writing!


	6. Chapter 6

No, I haven't abandoned this story. I've been helping my dad move, and haven't had much time to write. Thank you for your reviews, without them I would guess nobody actually read this and stops writing. Anyway, here it is:

--

It had been two days since The rescue team had brought back Roslin, Adama, Starbuck and D'anna to the fleet. Adama had given the order to restrict access to the planet to prevent further problems. The Cylons had mostly kept to themselves, though brought there ships back to there basestar as requested.

It had been decided that if they were ever to settle on Earth, they would be forced to make allies and establish relations will the natives. Since Baltar, Lee, and Helo claimed this 'Earth Kingdom' seemed like peaceful people, they seemed like the best option. Though there leader, A man Baltar said was named 'Bumi,' said he arranged for a metting in there capitol city named Ba Seng Sa, it was decided to return to Omashu, mostly because the raptor team was recalled back to _Galactica _before they could get directions.

A raptor carrying Roslin and Adama to make contact, Starbuck to fly the Raptor, Baltar because he had already meet the people and might be able to help, and two soilders from Galactica that both Adama and Tigh insisted on.

--

"Galactica this is raptor 042 on approach to surface, landing time estimated in one minute, Starbuck out." The experienced pilot was preparing to land the craft around 200 yards from the City, close enough to be noticed easily enough, but far away to give the people time to prepare.

"Baltar should be behind a prison door, not on a diplomatic mission." Roslin complained. Baltar admitted to his unwilling but avoidable assistance to the Cylon attack on the 12 colonies. He had unkowingly given vital software for fleet operations to a Cylon 'Skinjob,' as models like D'anna, or in Baltars case a 6 were commonly referred to. He had admitted to this some time ago during an attack on the Cylons, Roslin had been to caught up in Earth to tell anyone. "You shouldn't even had come down to this planet."

"How was I supposed to know she was a Cylon!" Baltar tried to defend himself."It doesn't matter who or what she, or it, was. You give information vital to our survival to an unauthorized person, it's called Treason."

"Look, I would love to sit here all day and discuss the finer points of Colonial law with you but we do have a mission."

Roslin sighed. "Couldn't we have brought Lee?"

"Lee has work to do on Galactica." Adama said. He looked at Baltar. "But you _will _have a trail."

Baltar looked worried. He had, of course, known about this and would surely feel far worse once the excitement of finding Earth had worn off. He had almost been caught once before, it had not been fun.

--

Azula walked through the streets of Omashu. The Firenation had recently conquered it from the Earth kingdom, taking one of the last remaining strongholds they had. Azula didn't want to be here, she considered the fire nations new government of letting the _people _decide who ran the city was a stupid idea that would lead to there downfall. She stood surrounded by Firenation guards to protect her.

She walked around the city streets, wherever she went former Earth Kingdom citizens were forced to bow down to her, or get there heads cut off.

"This is boring." She said.

She started walking back down the street to get to her home, when one of the guards got her attention.

"Whats that in the sky!"

Azula looked up where he had pointed. An odd looking, small object was slowing descending to the ground.

"It must be one of those airships! Remember that rumor that one appeared near the palace?" He said again.

Azula smiled. "Its target practice!" She sent a bolt of lightning hurling towards the raptor.

--

Roslin and Adama were going over there notes one last time before they landed when they saw a bright flash of light outside, and the raptor started shaking for a moment.

"What the frak was that?" Baltar said, in a worried voice. He got up and looked out one of front window. Another light was seen, much closer. The raptor started shaking more violently, Baltar feel down.

As much as Roslin and Adama enjoyed watching Baltar get even that little bit of pain from falling, they had to figure out what was going on. "Starbuck!" Adama yelled.

Starbuck looked up. "No clouds!""So what is it!"

"How am I supposed to know! It's coming from the city!" The flashes were brighter in that direction.

"Baltar, you said these people were _friendly!_

"And you said these people didn't have any technology, nothing that could do this, now shut up and do something!"

"That bending stuff!" Starbuck yelled. "Mabye there just, you know, bending stuff?"

"Lightning isn't an element!" Roslin said.

"You got a better idea?"

A third shoot came at the Raptor, it didn't miss.

Loud klaxons came from Starbucks control panel. "I've lost control!"

"Even if it is bending, Lightning doesn't do that, our hull is protected from electric shocks like this!"

"Well lightning doesn't come from peoples hands either so were just having an all around bad day now aren't we?" Baltar said in a sarcastic voice.

"Grab onto something!" Starbuck said. "Galactica this is raptor 042 we have suffered damage requested immediate assistance, repeat request immediate assistance!"

_Raptor 042 th- Gal- please rep-"_

Most of the transmission was filled with static, after that the radio went dead.

"Frak! They can't hear us!"

The raptor continued falling, missing its landing point entirely, eventually landing on a piece of rock near an entrance to the cave.

"Everybody alright?" Adama asked, in a loud voice.

Both guards managed to get up. Roslin gave Adama that here-we-go-again look. Baltar rolled his eyes, and Starbuck was trying to get the radio back.

--

"I'm sorry sir, There was nothing." The comm officer on board _Galactica _said to Tigh.

"So it was just a communications error?" Tigh said.

"Yes sir. I'll have it fixed now, but there was nobody trying to talk to us."

Tigh walked back to his favorite spot in the CIC.

"Sir, new DRADIS contact!" An officer yelled out. Tigh looked at the radar like display that showed a small, green dot appear from the friendly Cylon basestar.

"That's from there ship." Tigh said. "It's a raider, Comm, get me the basestar!"

The comm officer pressed a few buttons on her console. "Ready."

"This is the _Galactica. _We demand to know why you have launched a fighter without informing us!"The voice of a number 8, Boomer, was heard over the comm.

"_Galactica. We did not intentionally launch the Raider." _

"So the raider decided it wanted to take a stroll and just left?"

"_Were trying to recall it now, but its not responding to our command codes."_

"Sir, the raider is spooling its FTL drives." FTL, or faster then light drives, let a ship move great distances in an instant.

"Whats it doing!" Tigh asked.

"_We don't know."_

"Well figure something out!"

"_Were trying!"_

Several seconds passed, it seemed a lot longer.

"Sir, the raider has jumped."

--

--

Starbuck slammed her fists on the unresponsive controls in frustration. She and everybody else were quickly gathering supplies to get out of the raptor, she was pretty sure the raptor wouldn't explode or anything, the fall was relatively short compared to most crashes, and they had a decently soft landing, but it was best to be safe, and to hurry.

It took less then one minute for everybody to be out of the raptor, which looked like it was in pretty good shape actually. There was a scorched piece of hull where the lightning hit it, but aside from that, perfectly fine.

Starbuck and the soldiers, Montie and Kim, were taking an inventory of supplies. Baltar was sitting down on a rock he had found, Roslin and Adama looked towards the city.

"Baltar, you said this was an _Earth Kingdom city? _Baltar walked over to them.

"Yes." He walked over next to him and Roslin. His eyes widened when he saw the city.

Where an Earth Nation flag was proudly displayed, was now a Fire Nation flag.

"What happened?" Baltar asked "That wasn't there before!"

"They must have taken over." Roslin said.

"We can help them, can't we?" Baltar asked. "A team of marines, maybe a few Cylon Centurions, we could take this place back in a day."

"We still haven't decided what side to take in there war." Adama pointed out.

"It's pretty obvious witch side we should be fighting for, The Fire Nation threw you in a cell!"

"I don't blame them. Adama said. "A group of people coming from the sky with technolegy they've never seen before, they were scared."

The three continued arguing, while three people came out of the cave entrance.

Starbuck looked up from finishing counting there supplies. She looked up and saw the three, one girl and two boys, staring at them and the crashed craft beside them.

"Sir!" She cried out.

The three stopped discussing and ran over to her. They spotted the group of kids at the same time.

Roslin looked nervous. "Should we say something?" She whispered to Adama, quiet enough so the three couldn't hear her.

"There just kids, we might as well try. Mabye they know what happened."

The Small boy was the first to speak. "Hi, I'm Aang!"

The other boy, taller then the one who spoke, looked at them suspiciously and the girl looked curious.

"Um.." Roslin said, slowly, trying to figure out what to do.

"Hello, my names Gauis Bal-

"Shut it." Roslin said. Baltar backed away.

There was silence for a few seconds.

"Why'd you do that?" Aang asked.

Adama decided to awnser. "It's… complicated."

"Oh. This is Katara, and Sokkka. And I'm the Avatar."

Roslin looked up, surprised. "Avatar?" She asked.

"Yep"

"Whats an Avatar?" Adama whispered to Roslin.

"It's hard to explain. He balances out the four elements, prevents wars, brings peace, I don't know much, just what I read in those books at the Fire Nation prison."

""Oh, good, more magic mumbo jumbo." Baltar said. Everybody glared at him. "What?" Baltar said annoyed. "I'm the only one in this fleet that finds it just a little odd that logic, common sense, and half of our physics books have been thrown out the window the last few days?"

"We also thought Earth was a myth, the scriptures were false, and Kobol was just religous nonsense. But look where we are." Roslin said. Baltar didn't respond.

"What are you talking about?" It was the girl who spoke.

"Complicated."

It was quiet again.

"My name is Laura Roslin." She reached out to shake the small boys hand.

"My name's William Adama. Just call me Bill, This is Kara Thrace and Baltar."

"Nice to meet you." Aang smiled, and shook Roslin's hand.

"What are you wearing?" Sokka asked.

Adama looked at there uniforms from Galactica. "Again, complicated." He said.

"Right."

"That's a really nice metal thing." Aang said, looking at the crashed Raptor. "Whats it for?"

Starbuck opened her mouth to explain what it was, but decided not to bother.

"So what are you doing?" Katara asked.

"Trying to figure out what to do next." Starbuck said. "You wouldn't happen to know of a place to get supplies around here would you?"

"We were just going to a place named Omashu, its a really great place, we can show you." Adama sighed. He, Roslin, and Starbuck exchanged looks. "I'm sorry, but I think that's going to be a little hard." Adama said.

Aang looked confused. "Why?"

"Over here." Adama gestured to where he has standing earlier. The three, along with Adama and Roslin walked over.

All three of them had shocked, saddened looks on there face when they saw the fire nation flags.

"What happened?" Aang asked

"We were actually hoping you could tell us."

"I was coming here for an Earth bending teacher."

Katara tried to comfort him"Aang, I know you had your heart set on Bumi, but-"

Baltar interrupted her. "Bumi!"

Aang looked at Baltar. "You know him?"

"We were coming to talk with him." Adama said.

"You have to help us save him!"

"Aang, its to dangerous." Katara said "We don't even know if he's still alive."

"We have to try. Can't you people help us?"

"We can't just get involved." Adama argued. "And why are you going to try to do this anyway? Your to young to et involved in wars, these people are going to kill you."

"What do you mean 'to young!' Sokka said annoyed.

"How old are you? 14? 15?"

"I'm the Avatar and i'm supposed to!" Aang was speaking loudly now

"If you really think were going to help a bunch of kids get themselves killed-"

"Adama." Roslin said. "These people are obviously loosing the war there fighting. From what I read the avatar is the only hope. Mabye it would be in our best intrests to help them, and it would earn us favor with the Earth Kingdom."

Starbuck walked over to the three. "There is a way to tell how well they fight." She put up her fists.

"Kara!" Adama yelled.

Starbuck put her fists down. "Well it would."

"Bill, Mabye we should listen to them. We have the resources. to help them."

Adama looked at starbuck. "Me and Laura aren't in much shape to fight."

"I can do this, and we do have the marines from Galactica." Starbuck said.

"I know ways to help us get in." Aang said. "Whats Galactica?"

"Comp-"

"Complicated. We know." Sokka said, annoyed.

"Me and Laura could watch over the raptor." Adama suggested. "But I'm still not saying we should do this."

"I've seen you boxing on Galactica Bill." Starbuck said

"I have to stay here and watch over the Raptor and supplies." Roslin said. "Go with them."

"Please? Bumi was my friend, you have to help us!" Aang was trying to get Adama to help.

Adama sighed. "Were going to have to come up with a plan..."

"I can help." Aang said.

"And were going to be outnumbered."

"We were the last time." Starbuck argued.

Adama sighed. "Were in."


	7. Chapter 7

Ok, this is the new routine I hope to have. An update either every Sunday or Monday, I hope that works. Also, please note I haven't seen the episode 'Return to Omashu' in awhile. I tried to see it over the weekend, but I only managed to catch half of it, So I'm being forced to make some of this up. Please don't hurt me.

--

The new 'team' was gathered around a map of Omashu that Lee managed to pick up on his previous trip. They were trying to make a plan to rescue Bumi, or at least determine if he was still alive or not.

Aang, the small bald kid with Tatto's all of over him shapped like an arrow, pointed to a part of the map outside the walls. "That's how we can get into the city." He said.

Adama circled that part of the map with a marker he had gotten from the Raptor. "Ok, where would Bumi most likely be held?"

"Um… I don't know?"

The entire raptor team stared at him. Starbuck spoke: "You were going to try to fight your way through an entire city with guards, solders, and benders trying to kill you to save somebody you don't know is still alive without a plan, or any way at all to know where he is?"

"That's pretty much the routine." Sokka said smartly. "But he's an Earth bender, right? They would put him somewhere where he can't bend anything."

Starbuck smiled at Sokka_. __Ok, so these people aren't complete idiots. _He reminded him of her of when she first started out in the Colonial military.

"They've probably taken greater measures to hide him, when they shoot us down." Adama looked at the map more closely, trying to find a place that could be used as a prison.

"Shoot you down?" Katara asked curiously. "From where?"

Adama sighed._ Frak, I do not want to sit here for two hours explaining our life story to these kids. _"Ill tell you later" He said. He looked back at the map. Katara frowned, and decided to drop the subject.

"What about a prison?" Roslin asked, deciding to risk being yelled at by the more experienced military strategists. "The Earth Kingdom must have prisoners of it's own, even benders. What if he's being held in a kind of bender prison?"

Aang had an excited look on his face, inspired by Laura's suggestion. "That's it!" He cried out., and pointed a building on the map. It was shaped like a rectangle, surrounded by a wall that was colored black on the map, with small circles indicating watch towers on four sides of it. "I remmember building was made out of nothing but metal, so Earth bending doesn't work. That must be where Bumi is!

Adama was about to ask why Earth benders couldn't bend metal if it was still part of the Earth, sort of, but decided not to make them want to ask more questions. He circled the complex. "So how do we get from the entrance to inside the prison?" The building Aang pointed out was at least half a kilometer from the entrance.

"Were not exactly dressed for the part either." Starbuck noted the uniforms She and Adama were wearing.

Katara looked at the two. "I can help with that." She reached into her bag and pulled out a blue blanket. "I guess you could wrap it around you, to hide your clothes. Your going to have to share, though."

Starbuck looked at the blanket. "I guess it could work. But what about getting past the guards?"

"I hadn't thought about that." Katara put the blanket back in her bag to keep it clean until it was time.

"What was your name again?" Sokka looked at Starbuck. _What is she wearing? _"Kara?"

She nodded.

"Right. What kinds of weapons do you have?"

_Oh, this should be fun. _"I don't think you'll know much about them."

"There not very good?" _Great. There creepy, have about a hundred secrets, and don't have anything useful._

She pulled a standard issue Colonial sidearm from its holster. "I'm guessing you don't know what this is?""A toy?" Sokka looked at the small thing closely. "Whats it do?"

"Firing it might attract attention. Just trust me."

"Right." he said sarcastically

--

Back on the CIC of _Galactica, _Both the crew of the Battlestar and the Basestar were trying to figure out what just happened.

"What do you mean it 'just left!'"

Over the speaker, the voice of a different Cylon, a number 6, was heard: _"We mean we didn't give the command to open the doors, let alone to jump." _

"Heavy raiders don't just decide to go for a stroll!" Tigh was _very _frustrated, he had to restrain himself from screaming 'Launch Vipers!' when the Basestar was sending down it's teams to the surface a few days ago, this time he wasn't expecting it. _Or at least I don't think they do. What do they put in those bio-Mechanical things anyway?_

"_Were pulling all the information we can, we should have an update soon, please, just, wait. Basestar out."_

With that, the Comm was cut. Tigh sighed _I guess I have to just wait. _"Get me Adama, now."

The comm officer looked at Tigh. "Him and the President are still on the diplomatic mission, Roslin said very clearly _not _to be interrupted unless-"

"I don't care if there talking to the Earth King, Queen, dictator, or whatever the hell the have itself, get me the raptor!"

She pressed a few buttons. "Galactica to Raptor 042, please respond." Sevreal moments passed. "Nothing.""When's there next check-in?"

"Roslin also said to expect delays."

"Frak me."

--

Back on the surface, the lightning had fried most of the circuits aboard the raptor, making it impossible for them to hear _Galactica's _transmission.

"I don't get why were even doing this in the first place." Baltar said, annoyed. They had spent the last 15 minutes coming up with, what most of them agreed, was a pretty good plan for rescuing Bumi. "Galactica's going to eventually figure out we can't respond and come to get us. We can go on our suicide mission with backup."

Adama glared at Baltar. "Because every second we wait brings Bumi that much closer to his execution. If we want to help, we have to go, _now."_

Baltar sighed. "We'll what part do I have in this plan anyway?"

"You expected to come with us?" Adama was not going to let Baltar run off mid-fight and escape his trail by working with the Fire Nation. "Your staying here with Laura."

Baltar didn't bother fighting, Everybody short of the three kids were against him, but with a little quality time with President Roslin and Admiral Adama, He was sure the three could become valued members of the ever growing 'Hate Baltar' fan club.

"Appa, you stay here." Aang was talking to the giant… thing that everybody couldn't stop paying attention to since it decided to stop hiding in the cave about ten minutes ago.

"Is he your pet?" Laura asked Aang.

"Yeah. He's a flying Bison."

Laura held back a laugh. Baltar decided not to point out how absurd that was. "That's… nice" She said.

Adama walked over to Roslin from the crashed raptor, and handed her a gun. "Use this in case any Fire Nation come around. Or if Baltar tries making a run for it."

Laura was reluctant to take the weapon._ He doesn't really expect me to shoot at somebody? _"I've never fired a gun before."

"Hopefully it'll stay that way."

The two heard Sokka cry out from about fifty feet away. Everybody else was starting on there way to Omashu. "Hey, wrinkle guy, are you coming!"

"See you soon."

"Good luck Bill." The two hugged, and Adama followed the others. _I'm getting to old for this. _He thought to himself.

The group had been walking for about five minutes. Almost nobody had said a word to each other. Katara had decided to try talking to one of them, Kara Thrace.

"Hey." She said to her, in a cheerful voice.

Starbuck, not expecting anybody to talk, was slightly surprised. She didn't show it though. "Hey. You said your name was Katara?"

"Yeah. So, what do you do? You and all those other people."_Hm. I guess If Roslin was here, she would be telling us to try to be peaceful. I guess this Avatar person is pretty important, maybe being friends is a good thing._ "It's kind of hard to explain."

"Can you try?"

_Persistent, aren't you? _"Well, after this is all over, ill talk to Bill, and if he says yes, Ill show you, ok?" _Yeah, like Adama would ever let a group of children get anywhere near Galactica. _"What about you?"

"I teach Aang water bending, and travel around with my brother Sokka"

"The bald guy?" Starbuck was trying to talk to her. She hadn't talked to a kid in years.

"Yeah. He needs to learn all four elements so he can defeat the fire lord, Ozai. There's a comet coming, and when it gets here, Ozai will use it to conquer the world."

Starbuck stared at her. She didn't need to be Gaius Baltar to figure out that made very, very, little sense. "Sounds… interesting. But why him? He's 12 years old, why not an army?"

"Because he's the Avatar, he's the only person that can restore balance to the four elements."

_Alright. That's it. I give up trying to understand Earth physics. Change the subject Kara. _"So where's your family live? _Yeah. That's it. You don't have to know where it is, just pretend you do._

Starbuck could see Katara's face change moods. She frowned, looking depressed. "My mom's dead, My dads fighting the war."Kara suddenly wished she'd never had asked. Not just because it made Katara sad, it brought back bad memories. Her family had also died, during the Cylon attack on the 12 Colonies of Kobol 3 years ago. "I'm sorry." She said, in the most sympathetic voice she could muster. "My families dead to, everybody I ever knew."

Katara was sad at Kara's lose, but was glad she meet another girl that understood her.

The two were interrupted by Aang. "There it is!" The group looked at where he was running to.

Starbuck quickly adjusted. "Alright. You know the plan. Montie, Kim, you two stay at least fifty yards behind us at all times. If were in trouble, we'll give the signal." She was addressing the two marines from _Galactica. _"Mind if I burrow your blanket?" She asked Katara.

The plan was for Adama and Starbuck to conceal there uniforms, wrapping it around each other. There excuse, if caught, would be that Starbuck was Adama's Daughter, the group of kids his grandchildren, and they were on there way home.

Katara took out her blanket, and handed it to Starbuck. She ran over to Adama. Sokka walked over to Katara to ask if Kara had said anything about who she was.

"Lets do this." Adama said to Starbuck. He took the blanket from her, and wrapped it around them both in a way that hid there uniforms, and made it look like they were keeping each other warm.

"In here!" Aang had opened a hatch to a sewage pipe, spilling out an oddly colored fluid and giving the group a way into the city.

Starbuck took the blanket off them and went over to hand it back to Katara. "You think you can hold onto this until we get there?" She didn't want to get it covered in goop and stink while they were going through.

There rescue mission had begun.

--

It's a short chapter, but I was busy over the weekend. I promise to try to make next weeks chapter much longer!


	8. Chapter 8

Back at the crashed Raptor, Roslin and Baltar waited. The two had just sat inside, quietly, not saying a single word to each other. It was awkward to sit there like that. When there journey had begun, Baltar was a highly respected member of the government, the resident Cylon expert. Only a week or two ago had he revealed what not one person in the fleet suspected: He had unknowingly given A Cylon agent access to the Colonial Control Navigation Program in an illegal contract, allowing them to create back doors to exploit during there attack. Viper squadrons, Raptors, even entire Battlestars, just shut down like flipping a switch. _Galactica_, being the oldest ship in the fleet, and not networked, was immune to these attacks.

Roslin held the gun given to her by Adama in her hand. There had been a time or two where she had to restrain herself from putting the entire clip of ammunition into Baltar's head. After what seemed like a very, very, long time, Baltar finally decided to break the silence.

"So are we going to just sit here quietly?" He asked in a slightly sarcastic voice. He was sitting down on the floor to the side of the Raptor, Roslin was sitting in the co-pilots seat. She didn't respond.

"I know your mad at me. I know the entire fleet will have me shoved out the nearest airlock when they learned what I did, but it wasn't my fault!" His voice sounded angry towards the end of the sentence.

Laura Roslin Stared coldly at him. Then she spoke, slowly. "Twenty-three Billion people are dead because of you. Twenty three _Billion. _Our families, our friends, our homes. I don't know why, or how, but it's because of you that were here, because of you frakking up more then anybody else in the history of humanity."

Baltar sighed. "The Cylon, the number six, I had no way of knowing what she, or what it, was. How are you to blame me for that?"

"The contract that allowed you to give her access to the software was never passed by the Colonial military."

Gaius looked nervous. "Look, it's obvious this is pointless." Baltar said, now desperately trying to change the topic. "But while were here, we might as well try to contact the fleet."

Roslin was confused. From what she could tell, Starbuck had no luck trying to get a light working on the ship, let alone communications. "The circuits are fried, how do you intend to do that?"

"She simply didn't have time. She and everyone else went on there mission, before Kara had a chance to work with it much. It shouldn't be to hard, just replace a few circuit boards, one or two adjustments…"

Laura looked at him suspiciously. _I told them to expect delays, it could be days until they send a raptor to come looking for us again._ "Alright." She finally said. "But if you try _anything."_

"You have my word madam President." With that, Gaius Baltar stood up, and started the repairs.

--

Eventually, the group had reached the end of the secret entrance. Aang used his air bending to push the top off of the manhole that was blocking there way. Starbuck had insisted on being the first to get out, being the most ready to fight, in case a guard or two were waiting to kill whatever came out.

Kara Thrace jumped out of the sewage hole, gun drawn, slowly looking things over. Nobody was around to see them._ So far so good_ She thought. "It's clear" She said, while putting her weapon back in its holster.

The group swiftly got out of the secret passageway. Katara got the blanket out, again, and handed it to Adama. He wrapped the blanket around him and Kara as he had done before, and hopped it would be enough. The two marines from Galactica went up and followed them about 15 seconds after the five, ordered to stay behind, concealed, until trouble arrived.

"This way!" Aang started walking ahead at a fast pace, eager to try to find his friend.

"Wait up, Aang." Katara and Sokka chassed after him. Adama and Starbuck were trying to keep up with the blue blanket over them.

It was dark outside, few lights were turned on. Kara wondered if these people had invented the light bulb yet. She didn't think so. But still, a civilization that could create fire at will ought to be able to create torches and candles. Maybe the buildings had been abandoned?

Starbuck whispered to Adama. "Do you really think this king Bumi guy is still alive? Any competent military force would try to kill off anybody in a high position, like when the Cylons killed President Adar." Adar was the former president of the twelve Colonies three years ago, killed before they could do anything. attack. Laura Roslin took over shortly after, the only person in a high position in the Government still alive.

"The Fire Nation are very different from the Cylons." Adama said, in a tone as quiet as Starbuck's. "The Cylons attacked us to take us out of the picture, ensure we were not a threat in the future. The Fire Nation seem obsessed with power and greed."

"Whats that Have to do with the question?"

"It means that they may be saving him for a trial, prolonged torture, or using him to prove to the rest of the Earth Kingdom that they can take him down, use him to make the rest fear."

"Or use him as bait for a trap." She suggested, suddenly feeling a lot worse about there plan.

"Guards!" Sokka yelled, breaking up the conversation between the two. The three stood beside Adama and Kara, in a desperate attempt to make them look like a family. Two fire Nation solders dressed in red and black armor walked up to them, both armed with spears of some sort.

"It's past curfew." the left soldier said.

Adama looked at the soldier, and tried to make himself look like he was in charge. It wasn't hard, it was almost a requirement for commanding a Battlestar. "I'm sorry, sir." He said calmly. "My children are simply not good at keeping time. We were just on our way home now, if you will please let us pass?" Kara Thrace tried to smile unthreateningly at the guards.

"Were going to have to ask you to come with us. please remove the blanket to be inspected for weapons." The left guard, the one Adama assumed was in charge, said.

"_Oh frak!" _Starbuck thought. After there escape from the Fire Nation capitol, they probably told all there troops how they looked, what they were wearing, everything. If he didn't recognize them, then somebody at wherever they were being taken would. She had no intention of repeating her pleasant visit with the Fire Nation.

"Is there a problem?" Adama asked, still trying to convince the two to let them pass.

"We don't know how to know for sure where you were. Were going to take you to a registration center and check your records for anything out of the ordinary."

Starbuck tried to stay calm. She glanced at Adama, who looked at her briefly giving her a weird look that meant _You know what to do. _She sighed.

"If you don't hand me the blanket, I will take it."

Starbuck looked around the area, it was just them and the guards, nobody to hear or see them. She knew what she had to do. She threw the blanket down as fast as she possibly could. She reached for the Colonial sidearm in her holster, grabbing it and pointing it at the left guards head in a split second. She pulled the trigger without hesitation, killing him.

Before the guard on the right could figure out what just happened, Adama punched him on the side of his helmet, causing him to stagger, but not to fall. He dropped his weapon. The three kids looked in shock of what just happened as the fight between the three began.

The Right guard dropped his spear in surprise when Adama hit him, not prepared for it. He was trying to figure out what to do next when Starbuck gave him two more swift punches to the head and chest, making him fall to the ground unconscious.

"You three, lets go!" Adama yelled to the kids, who had been standing there watching.

Kara Thrace turned around and yelled out to the buildings. "Montie, Kim, were making a run for it!" The two marines ran over the group. The seven started running in the direction of the prison.

"What was _that!_ Sokka asked Starbuck, while running.

Kara didn't slow down to awnser. "It's called a gun. I don't have time to explain it, just don't get in it's way."

"that was _awesome!" _Sokka said in an oddly happy voice. "You got it so quickly and BOOM! I didn't think a girl could do that!"

Starbuck rolled her eyes. _I'm beginning to take back what I thought about him not being a moron._

"you _killed _him!?" Aang asked, surprised. "Why! You could have just knocked them out, or we could have gone with them or-"

"You think they wouldn't have killed us? Just shut up and move!" She yelled angrily.

--

Five minutes after there sprint to the building had begun, The small team stopped for breath. Adama was older, and tired quickly, they needed to wait for him.

Montie handed Adama a canteen filled with water. After thanking him, he drank almost half of it without stopping. He was panting, trying to catch his breath. The others were tired, but not as much. _Next time, I'm letting Kara lead the mission, I'm not in the best shape._

"I didn't think old people could run so fast." Sokka said, causing both Adama and Starbuck to shoot glares at him. "Hey, can I see that gun thing?"

"First of all," Adama began, "Just because I'm old doesn't mean I can't fight. And no, you can't."

Sokka didn't bother talking again. Aang walked up to Katara

"What do you think of these people?" She asked him. "Kara seems nice."

"I don't like them." He said, sadly. "She killed that person so easily, like shes done it before. Why would they kill?"

"They would have captured us, or something. There wasn't much of a choice."

"What if they just knocked him out instead of using the gun? They knocked the other person out."

"I don't know, we can ask them later. Kara said she might she might show us there home. Who knows, maybe you'll find an Earth bending teacher there."

"Whatever."

"We can't stay here long." Starbuck said, also catching her breath. She knew that somebody would eventually find the two bodies, or the one they knocked out would wake up and get somebody. She didn't think he would be waking up any time soon though, they hit him pretty hard.

"How far away is the prison?" Aang asked Adama.

_Like I have some dradis inside my head or something? _"I don't know, can't be to far now.""Alright, breaks over, lets move!" Starbuck resumed sprinting, the others followed.

--

Azula had returned to the former capitol buidling in Omashu . Just days ago, it was home to most government officials of the city. Bumi and his advisors among many. Since they had taken over, it was changed to suit the Fire Nations needs, mostly by changing everything to a mix of red and black decorations.

She was sitting in a throne where Bumi had sat. It was very uncomfortable compared to anything from the Fire Nation. She had been waiting for any news on the airship that had been shot down about an hour ago, so far none. She had been caught up in her own daydreams until the front doors of the room opened, one of her servants walked in.

"What do you want?" She said, not bothering to look at him.

"Apologies, majesty." He said, bowing down. "We just found two of our guards on the ground near the main walls. One was dead, with a small hole through his helmet, the other was just waking up, talking gibberish about men in weird uniforms, strange weapons, and walking with three children, one of witch had tattoos over his body.

"The Avatar?" she said, surprised. Azula was now away from her own thoughts, paying full attention to the situation. "Get all of the men that can be spared and have them meet me outside the palace, the Avatar will obviously try to rescue the king, we will capture him there."

"Yes, your majesty.""You said a guard mentioned strange weapons. Did he mention what kind?"

"He said it was small, far to small to be an arrow, crossbow, or sword. It was shaped far to different from a knife, and when it was fired it made a loud sound he couldn't describe. Then he saw the other guard fall to the ground."

"No weapon known to the Fire Nation can kill a man like that without bending. They must have been from the airship. She got up from her throne, and starting walking towards the door. "Whoever these people are, they are enemies of the Fire Nation."

--

Ten minutes after there break, they had finally made it to the metal walls of the building. The map had not, unfortunately, shown them where a gate or an entrance of any sort was. There were four watch towers that they had to be careful of, so they had to be careful about what to do. The seven managed to hide in front of the wall, at a blind spot in the towers. Starbuck and Adama had wondered how the Fire Nation had been winning the war if they had such an obvious weakness.

"Any gate is likely to be heavily guarded." Starbuck said, while examining the wall. "These people are obviously not skilled at working with metal." She said, knocking on it. To test how sturdy it was. "It's got a lot of impurities, and isn't very thick."

"It takes a lot of work to take down one of there tanks." Sokka recalled fighting them at the North Pole not to long ago. "We fought some of them at the northern water tribe, we didn't even break them, we just stopped them in there tracks."

"Montie, what do you think? C4?" Starbuck asked, thinking they could break the wall open.

The marine walked over and knocked at the wall. "Yeah. Two or three charges and should blast right open."

"C what?" Sokka asked confused.

"You'll see. Montie, Kim, plant the charges."

"Yes Ma'am."

The marines each took a single small, gray bar from there backpacks and placed it on the wall. "It's set on a timer, we should get out of the blast radius, now!"

"Run!" Kara yelled.

"From what? Whats C4?" Sokka asked, while Katara dragged him towards Starbuck.

After a short amount of time, a loud explosion come from the bars. Smoke blocked the way, Sokka's ears started ringing. The grass on the ground had caught fire.

"Go!" Adama yelled, running towards the large hole that had been made in the wall. The others quickly followed. Starbuck grabbed the gun from it's holster, the two marines were carrying some type of assault rifle.

Inside the wall, it was mostly empty. There were around a dozen guards, all looking towards the wall. Some had spears, one or two with bows and arrows, the rest weren't carrying any weapons. Maybe they were benders?

"Montie, Kim, your with me, try to target anybody with a ranged weapon! Starbuck, you help the kids, try to take out benders!" Adama was yelling out orders. He was, after all, the most experienced person there.

Starbuck ran over the three, who were getting ready to fight. "This is the time to prove that you can fight!" She heard one the Fire Nation soilders yelling out orders to kill them. _And here comes the fun… _

One of the unarmed soilders sent out a wave of fire at Starbuck and the three. She covered her face with her arms, remembering what to do in case of a fire on _Galactica, _when Aang sent a strong wave of air that put out the fire.

"Nice work." She said to him. She aimed her gun at the bender, fireing off three quick shoots. The first two missed, the third hit him in the arm.

"Thanks." Aang said, using his air bending to send the injured bender about a hundred yards away.

Inside the prison, Azula and her guards had been waiting for any kind of attack. She had heard a loud exploding sound, louder then any firework or explosion she had heard before. Shortly after, three quieter, quicker sounds. Then another two, farther apart then the first three. "There here." She said, to no one in particular. "You, with me." A half dozen prison guards followed her outside, to join the battle.

Outside, at least three prison guards had been injured or killed. A man with a spear charged at Adama, expecting an easy kill. William Adama grabbed his spear before it had a chance to reach his skin, using it to throw the guard behind him, and then knocking his feet down. Before the surprised guard had a chance to react, he pulled out his pistol and shoot off two quick rounds.

Katara used her water bending to freeze one of the guards feet, stopping him. While he struggled to get free, Starbuck walked over and hit him over the head with the side arm, he fell down unconscious.

Azula and her soilders had finally made it outside, and saw the battle. There men were loosing badly, and she quickly noticed the four people dressed in clothes she had never seen before. "Focus on the avatar, Ill handle them." She said.

Kara Thrace noticed the seven new people entering the battle, one of them was a teenager, around Sokka's age. _What the frak? There sending a kid to fight us? _

She fired off another round at one of the new soldiers, it hit him in the leg, causing him to fall down. She quickly got a new ammo cartridge out and reloaded her weapon. Montie used his rifle to gun down two more of them, the remaining three were reluctant to continue fighting. One of them walked up to azula.

"There pushing some kind of Metal or Earth into us. I saw something similar in the Earth kindgom once, but these are much smaller, you can't expect us to fight them!"

_Those are the weapons? _Azula thought. They_ look so bulky and heavy. _"Who are you!" She yelled out to them.

_Really, your asking that now? In the middle of a fight? Who raised you! _Starbuck didn't respond.

One of the benders shoot off several balls of fire from his hand, bigger then what they saw at the capitol. One of them hit starbuck in her hand, burning her. She dropped the gun, trying to put out the fire. While she was doing that, the bender ran up to her, planning to finish her off. Starbuck used pulled out a knife from her belt using her good hand, giving him a painful cut across his arm when he ran by. While he was still dealing with that, she grabbed her gun from the ground and fired off a shoot at him.

Katara and Sokka finished off the last of the guards. Katara froze them in there place, Sokka knocked them out with his boomerang. Starbuck decided these people weren't to bad at fighting. The group turned there attention to Azula, who for some reason, had not joined the fight.

"We don't want to kill a kid." Adama said, still holding his weapon. "Look, go to your parents, we don't have time to deal with you."

Azula smiled, though it seemed a very odd smile. "You'll have to get through me."

--

Bad place to end the chapter, But I've been forcing my self to right for half a page now. I lost acess to word, and i hate writing where I am right now. . Please, deal with it until the next update. Oh, and I finally got a review after two chapters, thank you!


	9. Chapter 9

Ok then, this chapter is shorter then most. Sorry, i didn't have much time to write over the weekend.

--

"Look, kid." Adama said. "Go back to your parents. It's to dangerous for you here."

Azula looked insulted. "How dare you speak to me that way!"

"I don't know what the frak your parents are thinking letting you into a battle zone, but we don't have time for you." He started walking towards the building.

"You've attacked the Fire Nation! I demand to know who you are!"

"My name is Admiral Adama. Telling you anything more would take at least an hour. Goodbye."

"Stop!" She sent a bolt of lightning at the ground in front of Adama, missing him by a few inches. He felt an intense burning feeling on his legs, he stopped and reached down in pain. Both marines from Galactica, after a moment of shock, raised there assault rifles at the teenaged girl. Starbuck pointed her side arm at her. The three children raised what weapons they had.

_What the frak!? _Starbuck thought. "Get down, NOW!" She yelled at Azula, pointing her side arm at her head. "Get down on the ground and put your hands where we can see them, if you so much as bend a candle you will have two dozen pieces of lead in your body, _do you understand?_" She spoke loudly and clearly the whole time, while stressing the last part of her sentence.

Aang looked at Starbuck, surprised. "Your going to kill her!"

Starbuck didn't look away. "She could have killed Adama, and might be the person who shoot us down, if we don't have a choice, we may have to."

Azula didn't move.

"I said, get down on the ground, _now!" _

"Please, don't kill her!" Aang was begging now.

"We wont if she complies!"

Azula looked at the weapons. She saw how powerful there weapons were before, they took down over a dozen Fire Nation soldiers. She knew she could take down one, if she was fast two, of these people, but the third one with a weapon would take her down. But She would _not _surrender, she was taught to die before admitting defeat.

Starbucks voice grew louder. "I'm going to count to three, when I say three your either on the ground with your hands where we can see them or on the ground dead."

"Stop!" Aang was yelling louder.

Katara tried to get him to calm down. "Aang, please, I know you don't want to see people die, but…"

"One." Kara Thrace began counting.

_Well, This could be bad. _Azula thought, trying to think of a plan.

"Two."

Aang decided there was one way to stop them. As Starbuck was saying the last number, he sent a blast of air out in both directions. He knocked down both marines, causing them to drop there guns, Katara and Sokka also fell down, not expecting anything like that from Aang. Starbuck, not prepared for it, and about to pull the trigger anyway, had a reflex that made her fire the gun.

She was thrown off balance by Aang's attack, causing her to miss Azula's head. The bullet struck her in the middle of her left leg, she fell down to the ground. Trying to fight back, Azula sent a bolt of lightning towards the group. The bolt missed her target, Starbuck, and hit Katara in the chest, before falling unconscious.

Both marines grabbed there guns and stood up, Starbuck a second or two after. The pain in Adama's leg stopped, he walked over to Aang.

"What the frak was that!" he yelled at him. "Attacking us? For what? To save somebody who would have killed us all and not even cared!" Aang wasn't paying attention, he and Sokka were checking to see if Katara was alright. "I knew it, I shouldn't have let Laura talk me into letting a bunch of kids come with us!"

"Is she alright?" Aang asked Sokka, worried.

"I'm not a doctor, I don't know.""Both of you, out of my way." Kara Thrace kneeled down next to Katara. She tried checking her heart, and her breathing. "That's not good."

"What's not good? Sokka asked.

"She could die without medical treatment, and…" She lowered her voice, and whispered to Adama. "And these people don't have the technology to treat her. I could stabilize her with the equipment on the raptor, but if she's going to live, we need to bring her to Galactica, were the only people that can treat her."

Adama was silent, thinking. There was no reason not to do it, to save her life by bringing her to the fleet. They would loose nothing, and the world would learn about the fleet soon anyway. If the avatar person and his friends were telling the world that they meant no harm, that they really were good people, that could make there lives so much easier.

Adama whispered back to Starbuck. "Alright, here's the plan. I'm the person on this mission that's least needed. Ill take the girl, what was here name?"

"Katara."

"Ill take Katara back to the raptor, me and Roslin can treat her until Galactica decides to send a ship to find us."

"With enough time, we can get the raptors comm system online. I'm willing to bet there working on it right now, we won't have to wait to long."

"Good. When you've rescued Bumi, get back to the raptor. The children will be taken to Galactica, the girl will receive treatment. Then we'll fill them in on us. The Colonies, the Cylons, the fleet, everything."

Starbuck nodded. "Yes sir."

"So will she be ok!" Aang yelled. He and Sokka were both panicing more and more. Kara Thrace smiled.

"Yeah. She's going to be just fine. But she can't stay here, were going to have to take her back to the cave entrance for treatment."

"But my sisters going to be ok, right?"

"Right."

Aang looked at Azula, who was lying unconscious with a bleeding leg. "What about her?"

"She's probably going to die from bleeding. I don't get why she was being so stubborn."

"Are you going to help her to?" He was begging them again.

Starbuck looked at Adama. He whispered to her again.

"She's just a kid. Kids do stupid things, we shouldn't just let her die."

Starbuck looked back at the kids and nodded. "Yes. Kim, you help Adama by carrying the Fire Nation kid. I'm in charge of the mission now. Lets go!"

--

Back on _Galactica, _CIC was still waiting for a response from the Cylons regarding the Heavy Raider. The Cylons said it would be a while, at least a day, before they had any idea what had happened.

Colonal Saul Tigh was on the CIC, reading a report from Geata about the Surface of the planet below.

"Your fraking with me." Tigh said, reading the cornerless paper.

"The Dradis isn't wrong, sir."

"But nobody could survive there!"

"Look at this." Geata was showing Tigh a Dradis scan of the northern pole of the planet, Where he thought a very large number of people might be living. He reached over, pointing out a location on a map.

"Those little bumps and marks? There to uniform to be icebergs, or at least not any iceberg we've ever seen. They appear to be buildings, part of a huge city, several kilometers long until the Dradis says its flat. there has to be a civilization living in the ice"

"It's the North Pole, temperatures are at extremes there, theres dozens, no, _hundreds of places other then a block of freezing ice to build a city. What idiot would start something there?"_

"The President mentioned something about water benders, maybe they just find it easier to build and live there."

"Right…" Tigh dropped the subject, he already had a bad feeling about these people. "What else is there to report?"

"Dradis scans of space have detected eight to ten planetary bodies, with an asteroid belt between the fourth and fifth, there's a good chance there's Tylium there." Tylium was the fuel that powered every ship in the fleet, if they wanted to stay there, they needed to find a source.

"We'll have to send a raptor to check it out."

"We haven't seen any Cylons yet. That's a good thing."

"We don't need a bunch of chrome toasters ruining our new vacation home." The Cylons had stopped them from settling a different planet, one they had named New Caprica. They had lived there for more then a year, and another four months under Cylon occupation. It was only because of Admiral Adama that they managed to escape. They had lost the Pegasus, another Battlestar that survived the fall of the Colonies.

"If that will be all, sir." Geata was about ready to leave.

"Have you tracked down that signal yet?" The only reason they had found Earth was that they had detected some sort of signal coming from the system. They didn't know what kind, but it lead them here, and if they could find it, so could the Cylons.

Geata sighed. "No, sir. But we have been able to confirm that it did not come from this planet."

"So where else is there to come from?"

"Asteroids, comets, pieces of ship debris. We don't know yet."

"Keep looking. Dismissed." Geata nodded, and walked back to his post.

"Dualla, any word from the Raptor?"

Dualla, the Communications officer aboard Galactica, checked her console. "No, sir.""Whats taking them so long?"

"The president said to expect delays."

"How long of a delay?"

"She didn't say exactly, but the President and the Admiral are probably involved in intense negotiations as we speak."

"Tell me when you hear anything." With that, Colonel Tigh looked back at the central Dradis in CIC.

--

Again, sorry, ill try to write something longer next week


	10. Chapter 10

Could you please give me some tips to improve my writting please? I'd like to improve to make this story better.

--

Kara Thrace leaned on the wall next to the door of the metal building that Bumi was being held in. In a split second, she jumped in front of the door, gun pointing straight ahead, ready to shoot any Fire Nation guards that were waiting. There were none. Inside the building, all the walls were still metal. The door lead straight ahead for about ten meters before stopping at a wall, and splitting up into two directions, left and right. "It's clear." She said to the four people left. "Montie, you and Aang take right. Sokka, you and I will go left, check in every five minutes." She started walking up the corridor.

"Who made you the boss?" Sokka asked in an obnoxious voice.

_Frak you. _"I'm sorry, was there somebody else here with several years of military experience that's lead rescue missions before?" Starbuck had been on missions like this before. More then a year ago, she was in charge of a rescue missions to get survivors off of Caprica after the Cylon attack.

Sokka sighed. "Nevermind."

"Good. Your with me."

The four split up into the two groups. The left path that Starbuck and Sokka took lead to a hole in the ground. Starbuck looked down the hole, that stopped after only two meters. There was a short ladder that the two used to get down. The walls, floor, and roof were still made of metal. There was another straight corridor, dimly lit by torches hung on the walls. Every few feet, a small jail cell was there in place of the wall. The cells didn't have much. Something that looked like a toilet, and a lump of metal that could either be a place to sit or a very uncomfortable bed. The were metal bars between the cells and the corridor, to keep prisoners inside. All of them were empty.

"Looks like we found our jail cells." Starbuck said, reaching for something from her belt. She pulled out a small device, black colored with a small display screen and an antenna sticking up from the top.

"Whats that?" Sokka asked, looking at the device.

"Hang on." She held the device to her mouth. "Starbuck to Montie, we found what looks like jail cells, all of them appear to be empty. What do you see on your path?"

"You really expect them to hear y-" Sokka jumped back in shock when a voice came out of the little box.

"_Starbuck, we've found nothing but what looks like a mess hall and a restroom. There's no body home, looks like we did a good job out there. It's a dead end, nothing else to see."_

"Understood. You and Aang get back over here, Bumi must be down this hallway.

"_Understood, were on our way. Montie out."_

The voice stopped, and Starbuck put the device back on her belt.

Sokka stared in disbelief. "What was that! First you have the weird looking metal box we found you at, then you show us a 'gun,' now you have people in boxes!"

Starbuck rolled her eyes. _Coexisting with these people will be so much fun._

"And another thing, that wrinkle guy called you Starbuck, but you said your name was Kara. What's Starbuck?"

"Starbuck is my call sign."

"Your what?"

"It's like a… nickname, makes it easier to remember people and give orders."

"Can I have one?"Starbuck laughed quietly to herself "You can't get one just like that. But it's not important right now, focus."

Sokka nodded, and looked around the corridor.

"The Earth Kingdom doesn't use much metal. They must have built this place on or near a deposit or something." Sokka said, looking at the walls. There wasn't a single inch of Earth to be seen.

"But wouldn't it be a better idea to build a prison for Earth benders above ground? It's nothing but Earth down here under the walls."

"I don't know. Maybe it was easier to build? They can just bend the Earth out of the way and put the metal in."

"We can ask Bumi later." She heard footsteps coming from above her, belonging to Montie and Aang "Get ready."

--

"Hand me that, will you?" Gaius Baltar asked from the rear section of the raptor. He had removed a bulkhead to look at the circuitry of the crashed ship in an attempt to get communications back online. They had had little luck so far.

Laura Roslin, the gun given to her by Adama still in her hand, cautiously handed Baltar an oddly shaped tool he had placed on a chair next to her earlier. "How does it look?" She asked.

Baltar silently looked at the panel for a few more seconds, slammed his fists on the ground, cursed, and looked at Roslin. "The outside of the raptor is designed to handle intense heat, and was even tested against lightning. but the designers didn't test it against several lightning strikes near the same time hitting in the same place. The hull can still handle it, but it was heated to a _very _high temperature. The circuitry inside doesn't have nearly as high a tolerance, it was melted. Broke everything; comm, navigation, engine control. That's why we crashed."

"Can you fix it?" She knew that if he couldn't, it could be days without word from _Galactica. _

"Probably, but It's going to take time. I have to replace half the equipment on this frakking ship."

Baltar went back to work inside the bulkhead. All he could see was a few rods, wires, and partially melted circuit boards.

Roslin looked at Baltar suspiciously. "How do I know your really trying to fix it? How do I know your not purposefully harming the raptor to delay your sentencing on _Galactica_? Or to try to escape?""As appealing as the idea of spending the rest of my life with a bunch of people that consider radio a form of magic while ignoring the basic laws of thermodynamics is, I would feel better away from here. Mabye it just hasn't hit me yet, how my life is about to turn. I'm not looking forward to when it d-"

"Quiet." Roslin said, looking as if she was listening for something. "Hear that?"

"Hear what?" Baltar listened for anything. Then he heard what Roslin must have, foot steps. They were quiet, he could barely hear them. But they were there. "Yes, yes I hear it."

Roslin looked out of the cockpit window of the Raptor. It was pitch black, the only reason they could see anything inside the raptor was that they had turned on an emergency light. "There's not enough foot steeps to be all seven of them."

"So, It's Fire Nation?" Baltar said, obvious panic in his voice. They couldn't see them, but anybody outside could easily see the well lit Raptor. "The light, turn off the light!"

"It's to late, they must have seen us by now."

"So what do we do? How did they even find us at night like this!""Mabye fire benders make light. Or maybe Adama brought a flash light, I don't know, just be quiet." She held her breath. _Adama, if it is you, give us a sign!_

The two were quiet, both looking out the windows of the raptor, for what seemed like an eternity until Roslin finally heard a familiar voice call out.

"President Laura Roslin!" Had this been any other planet, fighting the Cylons, there would no doubt be some complex code to prove it was Adama and not some chrome toaster. Nobody saw the point of making one, for now, as nobody knew who they were, let alone how to impersonate them.

Roslin breathed a sigh of relief. She waited for Adama do enter the crashed ship, she had plenty of questions for him. When he and Kim walked in, she was shocked to see the teenaged girl they had meet unconscious with him. Kim was carrying somebody that looked a little older, she didn't recognize her. Her leg was bleeding.

"Bill, what happened?"

Adama set Katara down on one of the Raptors seats. "We made it all the way to prison, this girl," He looked at Azula. "She shot… lightning at us. Aang was trying to stop us from killing her because of it, he threw Starbuck off balance and caused her to shoot the fire nation girl in the leg. Before she blacked out she managed to hit Katara. Starbuck says they'll both die if we don't get them to _Galactica."_

"So were bringing them to the fleet?" Roslin never expected Adama to let a group of _kids _onto the ship.

"From what you told me, thjs 'Avatar' is very important to these people. If we can convince him and his friends we mean no harm, it could help our negotiations"

"I understand." She looked at the two people. "We need to get the Fire Nation girl some bandages." She started reaching for a cabinet under the ships main console. "What happened to… Katara, was it?"

"I'm not a doctor, I don't know."

Gaius Baltar, who had been watching the situation quietly since Adama walked in, decided to speak. "If she was hit by lightning, maybe it sent her into shock, or some sort of coma."Adama pretended not to hear him. "Starbuck says the Raptor can be repaired.""He's working on it, or so he says." She glared at Gaius.

"Me and Kim can take it from here." He pushed Baltar out of the way and started looking at the inside of a bulkhead.

--

The four had started walking down the long, metal corridor of the prison. All of the cells were empty so far.

Aang looked at Starbuck "You really think Bumi is here?"

"Hopefully. I'm guessing they moved the prisoners out after the attack to ensure there weren't any problems. Maybe there planning to reuse the metal somehow, in the mean time this would be the best place to store him."

"Thanks. I guess." He said, with uncertainty.

The four walked until they reached a large, heavy door. There was nothing on it except a small window and writing in a language Starbuck couldn't understand. "Aang, can you read this?"

He looked at the sign. "It says 'POW, authorized personal only."

_Finally. _She looked through the small window. On the other side, two fire nation troops were talking to each other, not looking at the door. "Montie, I need your rifle."

Montie handed Starbuck some kind of assault rifle. "Give me just a second." She said, as she looked through the sight of the weapon. She pointed the weapon at the first one, and fired five quick rounds. The Fire Nation soilder fell to the ground, and before the second could react, she fired another half dozen rounds in his direction. She pointed the gun at the doors lock and fired the rest of the clip at it, the lock fell down into several pieces. "Alright. Lets go."

Inside, it was like a normal office. There was a desk, some chairs, scrolls that Starbuck thought they used in place of paper. On the other side of the room, there was another door, smaller then the one they had come through. Starbuck opened the door, and was pleased with what she saw.

"Over here!" She said to the others. Inside, she saw cells filled with people. All of them were wearing some sort of uniform, green and yellow colored. All of them wore an insignia that was a circle with a small square in the center.

Aang smiled. "There Earth benders!"

Kara Thrace walked up to one of the people that looked like the person in charge. "Who are you? What happened?"

The man looked at her. Then at Aang. "You travel with the avatar?"

Starbuck looked at Aang, then back at the man. "uh, sure. What happened?" She repeated her question.

"We were Bumi's elite guards. We were captured by the Fire nation during the occupation." He looked at Kara closely. "Your clothes. You look like the space men we saw a few days ago."

Sokka shoot up. "Space men! Whats he talking about. Your not _really _from space, that's impossible!"

"I told you Sokka, It's a long story, your going to find out all about it fairly soon." She looked back at the man. "Do you know where Bumi is?"

The man nodded, and looked behind him. "Sir, it's the avatar. He brought the space people we saw from the airship."

"Airship!" Aang looked at Starbuck excitedly. "That's what you were in at the cave! Are you air benders. How did you-"

"Kid." She said, stopping him mid sentence. "In a few hours all of your questions are going to be answered. Just give us some time."

"Fine." He said with disappointment in his voice.

The Earth Benders stepped aside, making a path. An old looking man stepped forward, King Bumi.

"Bumi, it's me! Are you ok?" Aang asked, stepping up to the cell.

"Aang. It's good to see you. Never been better."

"Not the time. Bumi, Aang, step away from the cell." Starbuck pulled out her pistol. "Cover your ears." She said before unloading two rounds into the cells lock.

The Earth Kingdom solders all jumped back at the sound of the powerful weapon. Starbuck kicked the door of the cell open. "Lets go, we have to move before a Fire Nation patrol finds the mess we made outside."

The soilders started walking outside of the cell, stretching there legs. Starbuck counted at least two dozen of them. Aang and Bumi hugged. "I'm not going." Bumi said. "This is my city, I can't abandon my people."

_WHAT! _She screamed inside her head. She took a deep breath to keep from slapping him. "Your people aren't going to get any help from you right now. There's nothing you can do, we have to go _now."_

"There must be some kind of resistance, me and my men can join them."

"Look." She said with anger in her voice. "We came all this frakking way, fought past at least two dozen guards, two children are close to death, one was trying to help you. I don't give a frak why you want to stay here. No offense, but there is nothing an old man can do to fight off hundreds, if not thousands of these people. You want to help them? You can come with us, help us make contact with your people, tell them the situation here, and organize a counterstrike to retake the city."

Bumi looked insulted. Then he laughed. "Alright. Fine. This will be fun! Where are we going?"

"Near a cave not to far out from the city. We have to get going."

Aang looked at Sokka curiously. "Whats 'Frak?'"

Twenty minutes had passed since Adama arrived at the raptor. Roslin had bandaged the Fire Nation girls leg so she wouldn't bleed to death, but if they didn't get her back to _Galactica _she could die from infection or some other nasty thing. She was watching Katara closely to make sure she didn't get worse.

"Almost there." Adama said, replacing a melted circuit board. "We should be able to contact _Galactica _now." He stood up and walked up to the control panels, and pressed a few buttons. "Raptor 043 to _Galactica. Galactica _do you read?"

The voice of Colonol Saul Tigh came through the raptors comm system. _"Bill? Finally! I was wondering what the frak happened to you down there. What's going on?"_

Adama and Roslin smiled. "It's going to take some time to explain. Send a raptor down here, get it to us as soon as possible, tell the doctor to prepare for two critical patients."_"It's on it's way."_ He said after a few seconds delay. _"Who needs medical care?" _

"Two native children. One is Fire Nation, the other said she was from the 'Water Tribe.'

"_Water Tribe?"_

"Yes, what about them?"

"_We think we found there home. The raptor should be there any second now."_

"Good." He said, breathing a sigh of relief. "Raptor 043 out." He looked at Roslin. "Lets get the two outside."

The two carried the injured children out of the raptor, and placed them gently on the ground. In the distance, he saw a small, bright light. It had to be a flash light. "That's them. Kara and the others."

--

Starbuck shined the flashlight on the ground, watching her step. When she first turned the device on, Sokka and Aang had called in a Fire Nation tool. If she thought that was impressive, they would be ecstatic on the raptor ride to Galactica. She heard something, a low, humming sound that she had heard a thousand times before. The soft sound of a Raptors engines. "That's our ride."

The two kids looked up in the air. A small ship was hovering above ground, shining a light at the crashed 'airship' they saw earlier. It started going straight down, quickly, faster then Appa ever could. Soon, it was on the ground.

"Whats that!" Aang asked. Before Starbuck could respond, He used his arbending to shoot himself at the landing site, far away from the others. At the raptor, Adama and Roslin already had Katara and fire nation girl inside. "Whats going on? Where are you taking them?" He asked

Adama looked at Aang. "Where taking them somewhere safe, where they will be treated and cared for until there better."

"Were not going to just leave them with you, were coming." A tired sokka said, who had rushed to catch up with Aang and check on his sister.

"We expected you wanted to." Laura Roslin was speaking now. "When we've arrived, we'll answer any questions you have."

"But where are we going!" Sokka was almost yelling now.

"It's hard to explain. You''ll see. Please, just trust us." She gestured at the Raptor. "Get in."

"Sokka, I think we should trust these people. They helped rescue Bumi." Aang was Pleading with him.

Sokka thought about it. Finally, he said, "lets go."

--

Hope the ending of this chapter wasn't horrible. Ill try to update some time next week.


	11. Chapter 11

Note: Just because, I added acouple of things I don't think are in the BSG show. I'm assumeing there's more then one kind of Raptor, and Galactica just sent the 'non military' version. Also, a 3000 plus crew ship has more then one eating area.

--

"Appa, stay here. We'll be back soon." Aang said goodbye to the large, hairy beast that he had earlier called a 'Flying Bison.' The creature was covered in fur, had horns, and an arrow across the top of his head. It still caused the people from _Galactica _to stare.

Reluctantly, The two young children crawled into the rust colored Raptor. Aang was surprised to see the ship looked far more comfortable from what he expected. There were couch like places to sit fixed onto the walls, two chairs in the front and a panel with many flashing lights, buttons, and levers that he did not dare touch.

Laura Roslin, who was still ouside of the raptor, called out to the man they had rescued."King Bumi, please, come in." She gestured towards the craft.

The old man smiled at her. "No thank you. I may be old but I can still find my way around. Thank you for the adventure, ill make my way to Ba Seng Sa on my own."

"Sir, I must insist. We can offer you protection and a much faster trip."

"I don't need your fancy spirit magic to get there."

Laura Roslin had learned to deal with other cultures decades ago. The ways of life of one planet in the Twelve Colonies of Kobol could be the exact opposite of another. Perhaps he had to do this. "Fine. Good luck." She smiled, and walked inside of the raptor.

Adama and Kim had finished moving the two girls inside. They placed them on the seating fixtures, it would have to do. The kids could sit on the floor or stand. "We have to start moving." He said to Starbuck, who was sitting in the cockpit of the ship.

"Just making the preflight check." She said, pressing a few buttons on her console. "We should be good to go... now."

"Good." Adama looked towards Aang and Sokka, who were standing inside the ship, taking in the unfamiliar surrounding. "You two should know, do _not _press on the windows, don't jump around, and be careful." He expected the two to know this, but he wanted to be safe.

"Where's Bumi?" Aang asked Adama.

Laura Roslin, who had just stepped In, responded. "He's taking his own way. Don't worry."

"I wouldn't expect to see the Fire Nation outside of the city any time soon. There going to be busy trying to figure out what the frak happened at the prison." Starbuck said, with a small smile in her face. "We can leave any time we want."

"Take us up." With that, the small ship started humming as its engines powered up.

Aang instantly noticed a difference. The ship started rising, but not at an angle like Appa or another Airbender would. It went straight up, pushing him against the floor. They rose quickly, far more quickly then he expected. Then, the ship started flying straight into the sky, the unexpected increase of force nearly knocking him off balance. They were going _fast. _Far to fast to be anything he knew about. "How far up are we going?" He asked, a noticeable amount of worry in his voice.

Adama Remembered his first ride on a spaceship. He was much younger then Aang, but still knew what it was like. "Far." He said slowly.

It was impossible to see outside, it was to dark. There was no way of knowing how high they were. It felt strange, moving without the wind blowing against you.

"At this rate we should be able to see the fleet in thirty seconds." Starbuck said from her cockpit seat.

Aang looked outside one of the windows. There wasn't anything blocking the view, he could see stars in every direction. There wasn't a window to look down. The Earth Benders said something about spacemen, but it couldn't be...

Then he saw something. Tiny specs, to small to make out. They weren't stars, that was obvious. They grew bigger and bigger, there were dozens of them at least. Eventually he could make out a few basic shapes. One was a large white colored circle connected to a straight main section. Another was large with large green half spheres that looked like it could be a farming ship. A gigantic, white ship that had spikes sticking out of it that vaguely resembled a starfish seemed out of place from the rest of the fleet. One ship in particular seemed to be getting closer, bigger then all the rest. Aang thought the ship must be at least a mile long, he wish he had something to compare it to. It was black with red stripes, and had two giant pods coming out of it. There was something on one of the pods that resembled letters, but in a language Aang couldn't recognize. The raptor maneuvered in front of the ship, and started flying towards one of the massive pods onto a runway.

"Whats going on!" Sokka cried out. "What is this? Where are we? Where are you-"

"Please, relax, you'll get all the answers you want soon." Roslin tried to calm him down. Aang was speechless.

The ship flew inside of one of the massive pods onto a runway, slowing down and descending. It landed majestically, Aang felt the ship shake when it hit whatever it was. They waited a minute or two, letting the airlocks seal and the pod fill with air again..

Adama quickly pushed the rear door open. There were many people outside, some in uniforms that looked like the marines, others that resembled Adama. One man, an old one in a white uniform that had to be a doctor walked over.

Aang looked outside the door. He could see for what had to be hundreds of feet until the tunnel finally stopped. This ship was huge, was could it be built? What was it?

"These two. On the couches." Adama gestured to Katara and Azula.

The doctor gestured to a group of people in similar medical uniforms. four people quickly dragged them outside of the raptor and placed them on streechers. He walked over to Azula and felt her neck. "Get her some proper bandages, check for infection." Two people ran the streecher through a door. He walked over to Katara with a curious expression. There weren't any visible injuries. "What happened to her?" He asked to nobody in particular, while feeling her heart rate at breathing.

Adama knew he wasn't going to believe them. "She was hit by Lightning."

The Doctor stopped examining her for a second and looked at Adama like he was insane. "She was _what?" _

"It's a long story doc. Can you treat her?"

"Yes. You got her here in time, she should be fine." He and the two remaining medical people took her out of the runway.

Adama looked at a few of the marines that were on the runway. "Arrest Gauis Baltar." Four people walked towards the raptor. "Throw him in the brig."

Baltar paniced. "You can't do this to me!" He yelled, finally realizing what was happening. "It wasn't my fault!"

"If he does anything don't hesitate to shoot him."

The four dragged Baltar away, kicking and screaming.

Adama walked back into the raptor, looking at the two children. "Your friend and the other are going to be alright."

Laura Roslin smiled, trying to look friendly. She was a school teacher many years ago and knew how to work with children. "I know you have a lot of questions. If you'll follow us, we'll tell you anything you want."

Aang slowly stood up, looking around the giant room. He opened his mouth, about to say something, then closed It again.

"Out here." Roslin gestured outside of the raptor.

Aang walked slowly outside of the ship. He finally spoke, slowly. "Your not airbenders, are you?"

"No, were not."

He stopped, look"And this isn't... Earth, is it?"

"We brought you here because they were dieing. Were the only ones with the technology to treat them." She moved towards a large door on the side of the runway. "Are you hungry?"

Sokka followed Aang outside of the Raptor. "Yes?" He said cautiously.

"Lets get you some food. We'll talk. Bill, can you clear one of the mess halls, please?"

"Yeah. I should check in with CIC to. Meet you in ten minutes?"

"Sure." She watched Adama leave, and looked back at the two. "The ship you are on is called the Galactica."

"Ga-lac-tic-a." Aang sounded the new, strange word out. He had a thousand questions, and knew Sokka, who was standing next to him, did to. He didn't know what to ask first.

"You said there was food?" Sokka asked anxiously.

She laughed. "Yes. Follow me please." She started walking towards the large door. The two slowly followed. Outside, there were narrow corridors, grey colored.

Aang whispered to Sokka. "Do you think Kataras ok?"

Sokka whispered back. "They say they are. But I don't trust these guys, somethings wrong with them."

"Without them we couldn't have rescued Bumi. There different, but thats no reason to not trust them."

"Whatever. At least they have food."

The four arrived at a large empty room, with doors and tables everywhere. Adama was sitting at one of them, on a table that had a half dozen plates, bowls, and glasses with with food and drink.

"I guess you cleared the place up pretty good." Roslin said jokingly.

"They left under protest, but I think they understood." He smiled at the two children. "Eat. We have things to discuss." the two pulled up a chair and sat down.

Aang looked at the food in front of him. The plate had salad, chicken, and a type of choclate on it. He had a glass filled with water "I don't eat meat." He said.

"Alright." Adama used a fork to take the chicken off Aangs plate and place it on his own. He didn't bother asking Sokka whether or not he ate meat, he was already digging in.

"So." Adama said, cutting up his food. "This must all be very strange."

Aang tried picking up a piece of salad. "Yeah."

Sokka put his food down. "Who are you? I mean, where do you come from?"

_About time you asked a question. _"It's hard to explain." Adama started, "Me and Laura Roslin are from a planet called Caprica. Caprica is one of twelve planets in a Nation called the Twelve Colonies of Kobol."

"There are people on other planets?" Aang asked curiously. "What kind of bending do you use? Are you Fire Benders? Earth Benders?"

"We actually don't have benders/ Until we came here we didn't know they exsisted."

"No benders?" Aang was shocked. What people didn't have benders? "How far away is 'Cap-rica?'

"Very, very far. In your distance several thousand trillion miles." Adama wondered if they knew what a light year was. They were more then 13,000 light years from there old home.

The two were shocked at the distance. Aang couldn't begin to think how anyone could go so far

"Why'd you come here, I mean, what do we have?"

Roslin looked at Adama, telling him she would answer now. "More then fifty years ago we build these machines, robots, called the Cylons. They made life easier for us. But we didn't treat them right, we used them as slaves. The life we created turned against us, rebelled and declared war on the Twelve Colonies. Eventually there was an armistice, we didn't hear from them for forty years. Then they attacked us, disabled our defenses, destroyed our fleets. Twenty three Billion people died. Fifty thousand of us managed to survive. We searched for a planet that we weren't sure even existed, your Earth."

Aang remembered his people, the Air Nomads were killed off by the Fire Nation more then a hundred years ago. "My people were destroyed by the Fire Nation over a hundred years ago." He thought that, finally, he met somebody that he could relate to.

"Thats the condensed version anyway. That happened three years ago. A lots happened since then. We came here, not expecting to find you. What you do, bending, it's magic to us."

"What you have is like magic. Space ships, your weapons, how big is Galactica anyway?"

"Almost two thousand meters long."

Aang tried to think about how big that would be "If the Fire Nation built anything this big it would fall apart."

"Explaining how this ship was built would take three hours at least." She decided to ask some questions about them. "Can you tell us anything about your world?"

Sokka spoke up this time. "We've been at war with the Fire Nation for over a hundred years, there trying to take over the world. They wiped out the Air Nomads, The Earth Nations only stronghold is Ba Seng Sa, and the Water Nation lives only in the North and South pole."

Adama and Roslin were silent. There Situations were similar in a way, both nearly wiped out.

"And soon A comet the Fire Nation created will make them a hundred times stronger, and they'll take over the world. We have to stop them before it's to late."

Any other time Adama would have called Sokka an idiot. Comets don't make people stronger, and these people weren't anywhere near the level of technology needed to launch things into space. "I see."

Sokka's face brightened. "But not anymore, Your here! you can beat the Fire Nation and win the war, can't you?"

Roslin frowned. "We can't. This isn't our war. We'll make contact with your people, provide food or water, mabye medical care for some places that need it most, but thats it. Were going to find an uninhabited piece of land and settle down."

"What!" He yelled, jumping up from his seat. "But if you don't do anything tens of thousands of people are going to die!"

"Mabye we can arrange something, to keep your people safe. Were going to try to contact the Earth and Water nations, if you would be willing to help."

Aang stood up. "Sokka, we have to trust these people."

He was quiet for a moment. "Fine. But I don't like it." He sat down again.

"We'll arrange for you to have a tour of the ship." Adama got up and started walking towards the door. "Ill see if Gaeta is free."

"Wait!" Aang stopped Adama. "When can we see Katara?"

"Ill go see the Doctor right now. He should be able to tell me."

"Thank you." Aang went back to his food, him and Roslin exchanging stories.

When Azula woke up, the first thing she noticed was a sharp pain in her leg. She was on a hard, metal floor and unable to move her hands, which were held behind her back somehow.

She managed to open her eyes. She was in a small room, very dirty. There was a small bench, and nothing else. It had to be a prison cell. She struggled with whatever was holding her hands together, she tried pulling them apart, burning them, and sending a lightning bolt down her arms. Nothing broke it.

"Don't bother." A voice from the other side of the room called out. "The restraints are fire proof and non conductive. Or at least they should be if common sense serves me."

She looked towards the man who was speaking. The man named Gauis Baltar was sitting on the bench of his own jail cell.

"So your the girl who shoot us down? I thought you people were crazy when you moved Earth, but making Fire and Lightning? That violates at least half a dozen laws of physics. I would love to examine one of your people."

She glared at him, and tried to speak. "Where am I?" She managed to get out.

"If I told you you wouldn't believe me."

"Try me."

"Your on a warship named Galactica orbiting several hundred miles above the surface of your planet."

For just a moment, she believed him. That moment passed quickly. "Joking wont help you. When my father finds out I'm missing the entire Fire Nation military will be searching for me. And when they find you all of you will be killed for crimes against us!"

The man laughed. "Your what? Fifteen? Sixteen? And your chasing down a twelve year old boy and his slightly older friends who are trying to save the world. I don't hold much hope for people that place there faith in children."

"Your working with the Avatar, you fools have lead us straight to him!"

"Yes, foolish us."

The two were silent. "Whats your name?" Azula asked Baltar.

"Doctor Gauis Baltar. Though I suppose you wont be calling me 'doctor' much longer. And you?"

She hesitated for a moment. "Azula."

"Well, Azula, welcome to the Colonial fleet."

"Shut up."

Katara woke up on some sort of bed. She could hear a steady beeping sound and a a bright light in front of her prevented her from opening her eyes What created a light? It was to bright for a candle. She tried standing up.

"Hold on there." She felt a mans hand gently push her back onto the bed. "Your in no condition to walk, when that lightning knocked you out you must have hit the ground pretty hard."

She remembered there plan, and Aangs foolish move. But that didn't explain where she was or who this guy was. "Where am I?" She asked.

"Ill let Adama explain that one in detail, but right now your in a medical bay. I don't have much but you should be fine, just rest for awhile."

She didn't resist. "Wheres Aang and Sokka?"

"If you mean the two kids who Adama brought back for who knows why, they should be around somewhere."

"Can you get them? Please?"

The man turned off the light in front of her. "That better?"

She opened her eyes. The room was small, but very clean. There were one or two other people in different beds. "Yes, thank you. Can I please talk to my friends?"

"Ill see if I can find them. Don't move." She heard him walk away.

He started off to to CIC but was interrupted before he even reached the med lab door. William Adama was standing in front of him.

"Just the man I was looking for." He said

"Doc, the girl, can she talk?"

"Talk, yes. Walk, no. She just woke up, give it some time."


	12. Chapter 12

I am so, so sorry for not updating last week! I was writing, I promise you, but four or five pages in Microsoft word decided that it hated my work and crashed, loosing everything. At the time I was already tired at didn't have time to re-write it. I plan to purge the program from my life and use openoffice instead. I have not, and WILL NOT abandon this fanfiction and intend to keep writing until it is finished.

* * *

Over ten minutes had passed since Adama had left the mess hall to check on Katara's condition, at the request of Aang and Sokka. Since then, the three had been talking and eating, waiting for Adama to return.

Aang was still having a hard time grasping what was happening. He tried trusting them, they did save Katara's life, even after what he did at the prison. Still, there was something about them Aang didn't like. Why wouldn't they help them? There must be something they could do. The metal creatures they spoke of, the 'Cylons,' sounded just as scary as the Fire Nation. "Can't you help us at all?" He asked Roslin.

Roslin had been struggling about what to do about there war. She and Adama had decided after there rescue from the Fire Nation capitol not to get involved, it wasn't there concern. But they could stop the Fire Nation, easily if they wanted to. But was it right to interfere? She knew nothing of the polotics, what if the Fire Nation weren't the aggresor? "I don't know." She finally said.

"The Cylons you talked about, you said they destroyed your people, like the Fire Nation are destroying us. Please, isn't there something?"

She looked at him. How old was Aang? Twelve? Thirteen? To young to be involved in something like this. She didn't want these kids or anyone else to suffer. Then she had a thought. "You said something about a comet?"

"Solzins comet. It was created by the Fire Nation and makes them a hundred times stronger. It's almost here and I have to stop the Fire Lord before then or he's going to use to destroy everybody else."

"How did they create it?" These people didn't have anywhere near the level of technology to launch things into space. Something was wrong.

"How am I supposed to know?"

"How does it help the Fire benders? Comets are made of Ice, they have nothing to do with fire. And assuming you could launch things into space, giving them a trajectory to return to the planet as a comet is extremely complex."

Aang scratched his head. "Whats a trajectory?"

"Nevermind." She would talk to Adama later, she had an idea. She was just thinking of what to say to him when a phone on the wall rung.

The loud noise made both Sokka and Aang jump. "Whats that!" Sokka cried out.

Roslin laughed to herself. "Hang on." She picked up the phone and was relieved to hear the voice of William Adama.

"_Laura, I just talked to the doctor. She says Katara is ok, She's awake and can talk."_

Roslin let out a sigh of relief. "How is she?"

_"Still pretty beat up, but should be just fine soon."_

"Can she take visitors?"

_"Doc says yes, and She's been begging to see her friends since I got here._

"Have you told her where she is? Has she asked?"

_"I told her where she is, but didn't give all the details. She thinks I'm crazy."_

"I thought she would. We'll be there in a few minutes."

Aang and Sokka watched curiously as Laura Roslin talked into the strange device attached to the wall. "Who's the old lady talking to?" Sokka whispered to Aang. She hung up the phone. And turned to the two.

"Adama says Katara's awake now, do you want to see her?"

Aangs face brightened, Sokka looked relieved. "Yeah!" Aang said happily.

"Thats Galactica." Adama pointed to a ship in a picture of the Colonial fleet a raptor had taken on a mission, to try to show Katara where she was.

"Why did you bring me here?" The last thing she remembered was Aang messing something up, then a bright light.

"The Fire Nation girl hit you with a bolt of lightning, you fell down and hit your head. Your people wouldn't have been able to treat you well enough, this is the only way for you to survive."

She didn't believe him, this was probably Sokka's idea of a prank. Though she would have to congratulate him, he had put in far more effort to annoy her then usual."Where's Aang and Sokka?" She asked.

"There on there way."

"Good." She looked at the pictures. Very odd paintings. She pointed to a ship, a large one the size of Galactica, that vaugley resembled a starfish. "Whats that?"

Adama looked at the ship, the rebel Cylon Basestar. It had defected from the main Cylon Empire along with sevreal other ships like it to protest a decision that had been made. The human model Cylons had decided to lobotmize there own servants, Centurions and raiders to make them less intelligent. The rebels didn't think this was right, and broke away. The main Cylons tricked them, destroying all but the one ship. "It's called a Basestar."

"Oh." Just as she layed her head on a pillow, Roslin, Aang, and Sokka walked through the door. The two kids immediately spotted Katara and ran over to her. Roslin smiled and walked over to Adama.

"Katara, your ok!" Aang said happily. Katara hugged the two.

"Where are we?" She asked them. "Are we still in Omashu? That Adama guy has lost it a little I think, he says were in space."

Aang wasn't looking forward to this part. "It's kind of hard to explain..." He said slowly.

"Well? What happened?"

"We got Bumi out, but they said you would die unless they brought you here." _She's never going to believe it._

"Where is _here _Aang?" She was getting annoyed. "You can't be in space. It's impossible. My grandma said not even airbenders could do it, not the greatest ones."

"These people are different, they don't use bending or spirits, they used machines to bring us here. I don't know how, but there not from here, there from another star."

Katara was beginning to get worried. "Sokka, look, enough of this. Where am I?"

"Think about it. Those things they have, the guns, we don't have anything like that, not even the Fire Nation. That thing we found them at took us over here. Did you get a chance to feel it before we left? It's not made out of any Fire Nation metal."

She was silent for a moment. Mabye she had passed out at the prison, and she was having hallucinations. She would just wake up outside Omashu being told everything was ok. But she wasn't waking up. "Your serious, aren't you?"

"Yeah."

She looked around the strange room again. Lights without fire, moving pictures, It was all so different.. "What are they going to do with us?"

Aang smiled. Finally she understood. "There going to bring us back, they asked us to introduce them to the Earth King. It'll work out, I might even find an Earth Bending teacher."

--

Adama and Roslin watched as the three kids continued to talk. Finally something good happened around here.

"Were still going to have to go through this one more time." Adama said, thinking of the Fire bender in the brig. They still hadn't figured out her name yet.

"She's going to be interesting. Mabye Baltar's gotten through to her."

"I hope not. The last thing we need is for Guias frakking Baltar to gain any kind of support on that planet."

"Agreed." She couldn't wait forever, she had to tell Adama what she thought.

"Well I need to get to CIC, Tighs got some pretty interesting stories for me." he started walking out the door, before Roslin stopped him.

"Bill, wait." She walked out the door with him. "We need to talk."

Adama sighed. This couldn't be good. "Whats wrong."

"It's about the war, with the Fire Nation."

"Laura, we talked about this. Interfering isn't an option."

"Bill, look. There war is just like ours. When the Cylons came, we couldn't do a damn thing. More then twenty _billion _people died, all begging for help, begging for something, some kind of divine intervention to come in and show them mercy, to stop the deaths. Nothing happened. We literally couldn't even put up a fight."

"What the frak does that have to do with these people?"

"A hundred years ago, the comet Aang mentioned, the Fire Nation used it to wipe them out. There was nothing they could do, just like the Cylons destroyed us. And now that comet is coming again, and when it gets here hundreds of thousands of people are going to die without mercy, just as the Cylons killed us."

Adama didn't respond.

"_Were _the divine intervention, Bill. We can't go around saying the Cylons are evil and then ignore it when somebody else suffers the same fate."

He thought about it, thinking about the Cylon attack on the colonies. "When the Cylons attacked, I lost almost everybody I ever knew." He looked through a window on the door at the three kids still talking. They and everybody else could be dead soon. "I don't want that to happen to somebody else." He looked back at Laura. "But we can't just change the balance of an entire planet just like that, what do you expect us to do!"

She thought hard, how to convince him to help. The idea she had, it was the only way."The comet, Solzins comet. I don't think the Fire Nation are winning this alone."

"What?"

"Bill, these people simply can't do what the Fire Nation says they can. They can't launch something into space, let alone in a way that would give it a return course as a comet would."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that the Thirteenth Tribe made the comet."

Adama didn't know w to say. They couldn't have, the thirteenth tribe got here much longer ago, to long. Far more then a hundred years. "Thats crazy."

"The comet has to be where the signal is coming from, Gaeta said before we left for Omashu it's not anywhere on the planet. It has to be on that comet. If we find the comet, maybe there's a message, or something, that explains all of this."

"Even if your right, and Solzins comet was made by the Thirteenth tribe, where did they go? Why did they help the Fire Nation in the first place?"

"I don't know. A hundred years is a long time, mabye the Fire Nation got it wrong somewhere and it's longer then that. The point is that if we find that comet, we find our answers."

"And when we do find the comet, then what?"

"Then we know the Thirteenth tribe interfered with these people for the worse, and it's our job to fix there mistake. I don't care if we move it out of the way or nuke it across a few million miles but we will _not, _under any circumstances, allow the Fire Nation to slaughter so many innocent people."

Adama sighed again. He seemed to be doing that often now. "Fine. Ill tell CIC to redirect it's search efforts. And then ill get somebody to show these three kids around the ship."

"Thank you, Bill."

Adama looked again at the three kids, who appeared to be playing some sort of game. "I just hope it works out for these people."

Roslin nodded. "Good luck. I have a prisoner to attend to."

Somewhere, tens of trillions, mabye even hundreds of trillions, of miles away, a long, spiky ship moved along the dark space. It seemed kind of useless now, it's purpose went away after the rebel Cylon Basestar destroyed the Ressurection hub, putting the once immortal enemies on the same level as there creators.

Near the Cylon Ressurection ship and it's two Basestar escorts, a tiny, bright flash of light was seen as a Heavy Raider, obviously damaged from a dog fight, jumped in. It maneuvered slowly but surely into the docking ports of one of the Basestars.

A number five Cylon model, known as Cavil, contemplated there next action. After the destruction of the Ressurection Hub, the Cylons had been torn in half on there course of action. Some believed that the search for Earth was far to risky now, with the possibility of death, and wanted to return to there home. The others belived the Humans were far to great a risk to allow to roam freely, what if they some day rebuilt, and went out among the stars to hunt the Cylons again?

That, combined with the recent rebellion, encouraged many to pull away from the group that had kept them together from day one. The Cylons were divided now.

_Finally, the first good news in weeks. _He thought to himself as the Heavy Raider pulled into the Basestar. The plan had worked. It had been awfully risky, with little chance of success, but it worked. It would take some time to pull there forces, they would need more ships. But he had what he needed. He placed his hand in a small pool of clear liquid that he used to give instructions or take information.

"They found it." He said to himself, grinning. He couldn't wait to tell the others. In a few days they would have all the ships they need. He sent his thoughts into the clear liquid, and gave the order: _Initiate Jump._


	13. Chapter 13

Azula was laying down on the bed in her cell, doing nothing. It was much more uncomfortable then she was use to in the Fire Nation. She guessed that at least an hour had passed since her arrival at wherever she was, and hadn't spoken or heard from anybody besides the Baltar person in the cell across from her, who had been either sitting down or pacing across his own cell with a worried expression on his face. She wondered what he was here for.

Azula was considering asking him just to try to get rid her boredom, but before she could do anything she heard the door leading outside of the brig open. She sat up, and watched as somebody dressed in a uniform similar to the solders who attacked the prison walked in, carrying a chair. He placed the chair down In front of her cell. Another person walked in, a middle aged women. The women thanked the man, and sat down in the chair, as the man walked outside of the brig.

"Hello," The women said to her calmly, "My name is Laura Roslin."

Azula didn't respond. They were probably going to try to interrogate her or something. She'd seen Fire Benders do the same to captured Earth Kingdom soldiers, though that usually involved a lot more yelling then what they were doing.

"Were not going to hurt you. What's your name?"

The women was just wasting her time. She might not look it to these people, she didn't just give things up the second somebody threatened her, unlike other people her age.

"We just want to try to explain some things, and try to avoid further hostilities with the Fire Nation"

"Her names Azula." Guias Baltar, who had been watching the two of them said.

Azula glared at Baltar, thats what she got for talking to someone.

Roslin Didn't bother to look at Baltar. "Azula, we know there have been some... Problems between our people, but were not looking to start a war." _At least I hope not. _She thought to herself. If they wanted to stop the Fire Nation from slaughtering everybody else, they might have to use force eventually.

"Yet you attack our people, twice, free some of our prisoners of war, and kidnap me."

"When we first arrived we weren't attacking you. We weren't aware of your city, our people were just trying to get us out."

"How can you not know of us? The Fire Nation are the most powerful Nation on the planet!"

"Were not from around here."

This was ridiculous. "Then where are you from, the spirit world?"

Roslin had to explain there story twice now and it's getting annoying. How many times would she have to do this? "We came here to get away from another war, to make a new home."

"Then why did you attack the prison!"

"We first made contact with Omashu when it was still under Earth Nation control. We needed to rescue Bumi to help talk to the Earth Nation."

"And why did you kidnap me?"

"You were injured, and your people didn't have the technology to treat you. It was the only way for you to live."

"And what do you intend to do with me?"

Roslin had been giving this a lot of thought. She thought she had a solution. "Were going to tell you everything we can. Then we'll bring you back to the Fire Nation. We ask that you tell your leaders our side of the story, try to understand us."

Azula was silent. The Fire Nation would never allow them to just settle down somewhere, they would be defeated and occupied. These people had interesting devices, perhaps they could be useful serving as slaves.

"I can prove were telling the truth." She walked outside of the cell for a moment, and walked back in with the man. "Get her out."

--

Adama walked into the large, busy room that was Galactica's Command In Control center. There were always at least three dozen people, manning various consoles and keeping the ship safe. He walked over to Colonel Saul Tigh, who was standing in the center of it all.

"You miss all the action Bill." Tigh said, looking away from the main Dradis display. "We had an escaped raider while you were gone."

"We had a _what?"_ He yelled. "What do you mean 'escaped?'

"We don't know yet. A Heavy Raider just launched. itself and jumped away to who knows where. The Cylons claim there confused as we are and say we should have an answer in a day or two."

Adama took this in. "Claimed?"

"There Cylons. I don't trust them. For all we know that raider is calling in every Basestar within fifty light years."

"They've earned our trust Saul."

He laughed. "Ill trust those toasters when there dead."

"Thanks to them the Cylons can actually die now. That should scare the main fleet away for awhile."

"I hope your right." Permission to be relieved Sir?"

"Granted. Get the hell out of here."

"Thank you, Sir.". Adama watched Tigh walk off the CIC, and walked over to Gaeata. "Any luck on that signal?"

Gaeta looked up from his desk, he appeared to be looking over some readouts. "I've gone over the planet a dozen times. There's nothing."

"Redirect your search efforts, look for solar bodies that will be in close proximity of the planet, comets in particular."

Gaeta looked surprised. "Sir?"

"The kids mentioned the fire benders launched a comet into space more then a century ago. They don't have the technology to do that, the President thinks it was created by the Thirteenth Tribe long before then."

"I guess it's possible. Ill start a search area around the planet. Did they anything about the comet?"

"They said it was getting close, and..." He knew Gaeta would laugh. "And it would give fire benders much more power, if that helps at all."

"After everything we've seen so far that doesn't surprise me to much. Ill start looking right away."

"Thank you." He walked away from Gaeta.

Adama thought about the Thirteenth Tribe. There Mythology said that, log ago, Mankind's original home was Kobol. Something happened that caused mankids to divide and go there separate ways. Twelve of those became the twelve Colonies of Kobol, the thirteenth was Earth.

It was believed to be some crazy superstition, and Adama laughed at the idea three years ago. Amazing how things change.

He realized that he needed to give the three kids something to do. He did say he would try to get them a tour of the ship. Gaeta was busy, so he couldn't do it. What was Kara doing?

--

Aang, Katara, and Sokka were discussing what they would do back on the planet. Aang would have to find a new earth bending teacher if Bumi didn't make it back to Ba Seng Sa, and he didn't know anybody else. Katara was feeling much better, she could get up and walk around the medical bay. Sokka was watching the funny moving screen that beeped every second or two.

"So where's Appa?" Katara asked.

"I told him to stay there. There was grass and stuff nearby so he should be fine until we get back." Aang was hopeing his large, hairy, flying friend was doing alright.

While the two were talking, Kara Thrace walked in. She recognized Katara and smiled at her.

"Glad to see your back on your feet." She said in a cheerful voice. Katara noticed she sounded a lot happier here then back on the planet. "I was wondering, how do you deal with Sokka? He couldn't shut up back at the prison."

Katara smiled back. "You get use to him, usually."

"If not the airlocks down the hall to the right."

Katara looked curious. "Whats an airlock?"

_Oh, right, these people haven't learned everything yet. _"Nothing. Adama told me to give you guys a tour."

"Wait a second, didn't you say this ship was like a mile long?" Aang asked.

"Not the _entire _ship, just the more important parts. You just have to keep your hands to yourselves and don't touch anything, the usual."

--

It turned out proveing something to Azula was much, much harder then to the kids. She had been impressed, or so it seemed, with some of the Technology aboard Galactica, Computers, monitors, and other modern tools. But she refused to believe the nonsense of being in space.

So, as a drastic measure, she had gotten two guards with her and taken her, still in her cuffs of course, on a raptor trip in space to show her the fleet.

"Thats Space park." She said, pointing to one of the larger ships. "And thats called Colonial One." She pointed towards a medium sized blue-white ship, her home in the fleet. She handled all presidential business there.

Deep down inside, Azula was amazed. She didn't dare show it. For all she knew she was unconscious and this was all a mind trick. But it still felt so real...

"Why don't you open a window then, let me _feel _space?_"_

Roslin tried hard not to laugh. "Because then it would be rather hard to breath."

Azula looked at the many ships. Some were huge, like Galactica. Others she could barely make out.

"It takes Fire Benders to weld together Iron ships. How can you possibly build these without them?"

"We have things that are like fire. Torches and other devices."

She was finding it harder and harder not to believe them, but why would they be doing this.? "What do you want from me?"

"Actually, I was hoping you could tell me something."

_Aha! I knew it! This was to get information! _"What do you want?"

"I want to know everything you know about 'Sozlins Comet.'"

"Cool!" Sokka exclaimed, staring at a mark 2 Viper.

One of the first stops on Kara's tour was the hanger bay, where they stored most of the fighter craft used to fight the Cylons. The mark 2 Vipers, a white colored fighter with a single red stripe, three fins, and a cockpit barely big enough to hold a person were the main ship.

Mark 7's, the newer design, were a sleeker, silver colored fighter. They used better, more powerful weapons and maneuvered a lot better then the mark 2's. They were useless during the Cylon attack on the colonies, but since Galactica removed the network from the fighters they became a lethal weapon to the Cylons.

The three were all staring at the mark 2 viper, which had been moved to a more open spot in the hanger bay to get repair work done on it.

"These are used to defend the fleet during attacks." Kara Thrace explained. "There weapons work on a similar principle to the hand weapon I had on the planet, except a lot more complicated and bigger."

"It's kind of pretty." Katara said, putting her hand on it. "Do you ever fly them?"

Kara smiled proudly. "I'm the best Viper pilot in the fleet."

"Cool."

Aang admired the fighter. But he still couldn't ignore the fact they were used to kill things. He wondered how many Cylons Kara had killed.

"You want to get in?" Kara asked Aang.

"No thanks."

"I do!" Sokka cried out, trying to figure out how to open the cockpit.

Sokka was really getting on her nerves. How did these kids deal with them? He was rude, annoying, and seemed to consider himself superior to everybody else. Still, as much as she hated it, she had to be friendly to them. "Here, like this."

--

The raptor landed gracefully in the port landing pod of Galactica. After wating for it to repressurize, Roslin had Azula escorted back to her cell. She had refused to say anything about the comet unless she was returned immediately. Either way, at least she believed them now.

Roslin thought about there next move. They managed to recover the crashed raptor by the cave, but the one they first took to the planet seemed like a lost cause, it was missing. The craft was far to complex for them to figure out how to work it, but it was annoying.

Surely what happened in the Fire Nation had been heard of elsewhere. How could you keep something like that secret? And even they had, when they initially arrived ships landed everywhere, in Fire, Earth, and one or two small water tribes. They hadn't visited the poles though, where Katara had mentioned there main cities were.

So, if they saw a 'skyship' come anywhere near Ba Seng Sa, they would be captured or killed. A Raptor was out of the question. Aang had mentioned something about Appa being a 'flying bison,' but did even these people have such strange things? And would the Earth Nation really trust the word of a twelve year old boy, even if he was the avatar?

One thing Roslin knew was that the Quorum of Twelve was going to give her a major headache at there next meeting.

I hope I got the story of the 13 tribes right. I think I did, but since my house lost the TV I haven't been able to watch the episodes to make sure.


	14. Chapter 14

Sorry for the late update. I've been getting a little bit of writers block for how I want to write the next couple of chapters. Also, to any of you reading this who have not watched Battlestar Galactica,(Since at least one person reading this watches BSG and not Avatar it's a possibility) I just thought I'd mention: Gaeta only has one leg. I continue forgetting to mention this, it's only been a fact for about 3 episodes.

* * *

Azula stared blankly at the plate of rations in front of her. After her trip in 'space,' she had been escorted back to her cell and given a plate of odd looking white-brown colored stuff to eat. Eating while still in her handcuffs, which covered her entire hands and not just held them together, was hard. Eating while trying to keep her stomach was harder.

"It's not going to bite you." Guias Baltar said to her from across the room.

_As if I'm going to talk to you again. _She thought to herself. If she told them her name, he would tell them anything she told him to. She wasn't going to talk.

"You know, I'm going to talk to you and annoy you all I like. Odds are in a few days I'm going to be shoved out an airlock anyway so I might as well go out saying my mind."

Well, he was annoying. And why wouldn't he cut his hair? It was all the way down to his shoulders!

"It's really a shame. Cylon deception aside I'm a brilliant scientist. If our people are going to coexist in some sort of spirit world magic thingy or whatever you people call it, your going to need me."

_Shut up!_

"How do you bend anyway? Genetics? Is it passed down from one generation to the next? Or does the father spirit man come down and go 'Hm... I think that you'd make a good bender,' and poof! Fire benders everywhere?"

She finally worked her way to getting something in her mouth, and immediately spit it out. Whatever it was they were giving her tasted like feet.

She'd been thinking, who were these people? She hadn't seen a single bender since she got here. And what she had seen amazed her. Moving pictures, objects flying without air benders. What if these people were telling the truth?If these people had the same weapons they used at the prison, perhaps it was in the Fire Nations best interests to cooperate, for the time. At least until they got there hands on some of there technology.

Three hours had passed since Colonel Tigh had left the CIC. After being in charge for so long lately, wanting some time off was understandable. Since then, it had been pretty routine, or at least as routine as could be expected when, after three years of barely keeping alive, and finally reaching your new home, only to discover you couldn't get anywhere near it yet. They had already had two ships try to make an unscheduled landing, both stopped the second Adama ordered a few vipers launched.

William thought the kids were doing pretty well. He liked Aang, he seemed to be taking the situation pretty well. From what Adama knew, Aang's friends, and the entire _planet _were expecting so much out of him, but he still managed to keep it together. He hoped this was a sign of responsibility in handling it, and not irresponsibility and stupidity from him just ignoring the immense challenge he would face.

And to add to that, as vague as it was, Adama and Aang resembled each other. The entire planet below expected Aang the avatar to come out of nowhere and fix there problem, just as the fleet expected him to keep humanity together after the initial Cylon attack. He could relate to him, not something he could do to very many people

He was considering checking in with Kara and the kids when Gaeta walked up to him with a clipboard in his hand, looking excited. "I just finished a Dradis sweep of the surrounding area around the planet." He handed Adama the clipboard.

Adama didn't bother to read the cornerless paper. "The signal?"

"We've found something coming from a solar body approximently 15 million miles from the surface. It's going to take some time for the ships computers to analyze the object's trajectory, but the signals definitely there."

Adama glanced at the paper momentarly. "Can you tell anything about what the object is? A piece of debris, a ship, beacon, comet?"

"Not from this range. We can confirm the signals location and make a rough size estimate. Were going to have to take a raptor to get anything more detailed."

"How big is it?

"At least 10 to 15 kilometers"

"I see" He glanced at the clipboard again, and handed it back to Gaeta. "We need to send a raptor to do a scan of the other seven planets soon. Add this to the list of things to check out."

"Yes sir." He walked back to his desk.

Kara Thrace and the three kids had made eight more stops after the trip to the Viper bay. Mostly they were just crew areas, and they were on there final stop, Galactica's CIC. She had given them the standard warnings, Be quiet, don't touch anything, don't disturb anybody, everything you need to know so you don't frak with Adama.

"Can I ask you something?" Sokka asked, who had been doing an exemplary job of getting on Starbuck's nerves throughout the day.

She took a deep breath. Remember_ what Roslin said. Respect these people. There not weird, or stupid, or frakking annoying, there just different._ "First, please call me 'Kara' when were on Galactica, not Starbuck."

"Fine, Kara, What does 'frak' mean?"

She stopped for a second to take in the question. Nobody had asked her that before. Everywhere, everybody she knew, everytime without fail, whoever she was talkingto _always _knew what that word meant. Sure, they weren't from the Twelve Colonies, but these people the same language as the fleet, and that alone was confusing.

"What do you mean what does frak mean?"

"I mean, I keep hearing people say it, and they always say it differently. They say Frak you, or Frakking stupid, or Frakked up, or Frakking great, what does it mean?"

She paused to think of an awnser. "Frak..."

"Yeah?"

"What _does _frak mean." She never really asked herself that. Everybody just seemed to use it somehow, It didn't have a definition, it wasn't even a real word.

"It doesn't really mean anything. I guess it's just something you say to make you feel better." _Did that even make sense? _

"So is it a complement or an insult?"

"Um... both, depending on how you use it. Look, it's not really a word, it doesn't really _mean _anything."

Sokka took that in. "Oh. Ok."

"So you understand?"

"You Frakking bet I do."

Kara didn't know whether to smile, laugh, or cry to herself when he wasn't looking. She decided to just ignore him for now. She gestured towards a door. "Lets go."

As the four started towards the door, she stopped Katara while the others weren't looking. "I'm sorry in advance for whatever trouble he causes with that word."

Katara smiled at her. "Don't worry, he forgets things easily."

Katara walked inside CIC, where dozens of people were monitoring computer monitors, graphs, some were on telephones, and others were using some sort of flat map of the planet, charting what looked like major cities, roads, and other areas. The map was so detailed and precise, entire continents she didn't even know existed were marked with every mountain in every detail to the meter.

"This is CIC, or Combat Information Center" Kara started to explain, "It's the main command area of Galactica. People like Adama control the ship, and when we get into a fight this is where they get all they need to know."

Katara noticed the room was huge, there were so many people. It was a lot quieter then what she would expect. She walked towards the center of the large room, stopping in front of the map. A few members of the crew stopped at looked at her, a few others looked at Aang and Sokka. She suddenly realized they were dressed very strangely to them, and kids here must not be a very common sight.

Adama walked over to her. He noticed she was staring at the map. He tried to smile at her. "It's called a Dradis, we use it to look for other ships, like the Cylons, and keep track of our own. This map is made by focusing the Dradis on the planet, we can tell you everything from the size of a mountain to the location of a random building in any city."

She noticed the North pole had the Northern Water Tribe, where they had taken Aang to learn Water Bending not to long ago, was marked and easy to see. She heard a soft, humming sound that started, then stopped regularly. It was coming from the Dradis, whatever it was.

Adama looked at the people staring at the kids, and stopped smiling. "Are they doing something? You have work to do, get back to your posts!" Whoever had been staring immediately resumed there work without a word. She wondered if he would teach her how to do that.

Adama looked around the room, looking for Kara. She was with Aang, who was trying to figure out what Gaeta was doing. "Starbuck!" He called out to her.

He called her Starbuck. Kara thought that was odd, he only called her that when there was a mission or serious work. She rushed over to him. "Yes sir?"

He picked up a copy of the paper Gaeta had handed him earlier, and handed it to Starbuck. "This is what we believe the signal that brought us here is coming from."

She examined the paper, it was the same as any early Dradis sheet she'd seen before. "Good, is there something you need me to do?"

Adama paused before answering. If they did this the entire planet would change, hopefully for the better. Roslin just _barely _talked him into this"Assuming the object is made of a mixture of rock and ice, what would it take to destroy it?"

Kara blinked in surprise, _did I hear him right? _"You want it destroyed, sir?"

"Was I not clear?"

Starbuck knew he wanted something done about the signal, once it was found, to ensure the Cylons wouldn't find it, but.. "Why rock and Ice?"

Adama gave her a quick description of what the kids had said, about what it would do.

"Well..." She looked at the paper, doing some rough math in her head, and looked back up. "Vipers and Raptors can't carry big enough nukes to take it down. They could change it's path, but the signal would still be there. I'd say nothing less then an all-out nuclear strike from Galactica itself."

He nodded. "Contact the Cylon Basestar. Mabye they have something bigger that can fit on a fighter, in the mean time, were going to get you all the information we can. Dismessed" He stated walking away from her.

Kara stopped him. "Sir?"

He stopped and turned around. "Yes?"

"Were not going to let those people die, are we?"

He didn't say anything.

"Sir?"

Adama got all the sincerity he could possibly muster into one word. "No."

Sharon "Athena" Valerii felt like the luckiest women in the fleet. Normally, she would have been shoved out an airlock days ago, for what she had done, and thanked the Lords of Kobol Tigh and Adama still hated the Cylons with a passion.

A few days ago, she had shoot a Cylon, a six, while on Galactica when they were still negotiating an alliance. She thought that the Number Six was planning to kidnap or somehow take her child, Hera, away. If things had turned out differently between them and the Cylons because of that, she would be dead. She, herself, was a Cylon, a number eight model. She had worked _very _hard over the passed year to earn the trust of Adama and the rest of the fleet, trust she had proven she was worthy of time and again.

She and Karl 'Helo' Agathon had been selected on a search mission. They were to examine the other seven planetary bodies in the system, as well as a small number of larger solar bodies, and where it was believed the location of the signal that brought them here was.

She hadn't been paying much attention to the fleets news. She knew that there had been a ban on anybody going down to the planets surface without permission, violators would be shoot down, and ships that had already landed were recalled immediately when Adama and Roslin's raptor returned to Galactica. Apparently it was because they had found sentient life there. Something always got in the way.

She climbed into the cockpit of the Colonial raptor, which was getting ready to launch as she entered. Helo was already in his seat, making the final pre-flight checks.

"What took you so long?" He asked, not looking up from the console.

"Nothing, I was just catching up with somebody. Sorry I'm late." _Thats stupid Sharon._

Just as she was sitting down, the voice of Galactica's comm system came over the raptors intercomm:

_"Galactica to Raptor 217 your clear to launch, good luck and see you soon"_

The mission should only last around twelve to fifteen hours. That was good, she hated long missions. And at least her best friend, Karl Agathon, was here with her. She cheecked her display. "Lets go."

In half a minute, the raptor ran straight ahead, out of Galactica's hanger pod and into the dark void of space.

"FTL Coordinates set." Helo reported, making sure he got things right. Jumping inside a mountain really ruined someone's day. "This should take us to the first planet."

"Jumping in 5" Sharon deactivated the safeties, putting in the final instructions for the jump. She hated the next part.

"_Three... Two... One... Jump!"_

Roslin knew they would have to go back to the planet soon. They had located a patch of land on the southeastern part of the middle continent that appeared to be uninhabited. Still, she wanted to make there presence known to all three nations. From what she could tell, everybody else in the fleet did to.

She made her way to the ships brig, the guards said that Azula finally wanted to talk. That was good, maybe she had gotten through to her after all. She entered the brig, and walked over to her cell. "You wanted to talk?"

Azula stood up, and walked up to the cells bars. "I thought about what you said, about you wanting me to talk to the Fire Nation for you."

"And?"

"And Ill do it. Ill tell them everything you've told me, and that it's best for us to come together, solve our differences, and work together." _Until you give us your technology and we beat you back to whatever planet you came from._

"Well, you've had a change of heart." Roslin said with a strange tone in her voice. "Any reason you've suddenly changed your mind?"

"You've truly shown me the way."

Roslin raised her eyebrow. "Right..." She looked at a guard. "Tell Adama to prep a raptor. Also, I want to talk to him about the other kids."

"Your bringing me back?"

"A deals a deal, and as long as you hold _your _part up, we'll hold ours. You should be out of here in a few hours.

Azula tried to smile, something she wasn't very good at. "Thank you." _you idiot._

Roslin left the room, rolling her eyes. She wondered how long it would take Azula to figure out she already knew what she was planing.

Ok, I'm going to try to focus more on Avatar. I think I'm focusing a bit to much on Battlestar Galactica and to little on the stuff on the planet. Also, I got the idea for that 'frak' part from FrieghtTrain, thank you!


	15. Chapter 15

So much for one update every week.

Also, did anybody hear the news? The final episodes of Battlestar: Galactica are airing THIS January 16th! Anybody excited? I know I am!

* * *

Brother Cavil went over the information received from the Heavy raider. "Well, this is interesting." he said to the two Cylon models in front of him. Both were the same type, a One, so in a way it was talking to himself. Still, both watched over there own Cylon Basestar, and if the Cylons were to rid the universe of the disease that was humanity once and for all, he would need there help.

"The Heavy Raider successfully downloaded the contents of the Rebel Basestars Dradis records and navigation logs before it left." He said to the two. "They found Earth, and from these logs they found... something else to."

The Cylon on the left, a Four, Examined an identical Dradis sheet. "The readings are flawed, the plan failed. It's impossible for identical life to develop on two planets thousands of light years apart."

The right one talked: "The plan worked just fine. The scans show cities far more primitive then the humans had built. According to there own religion, humans came here from the planet 'Kobol' thousands of years ago. Is it possible they could have regressed?"

"Technological regression is nothing but a cliché from human entertainment. Any society with the level of technology to venture into space, settle on another planet, and make a living is advanced enough to stay that way." The model Five Cylon explained "And your not actually considering the human religion as truth, are you?

"How or why the natives of the planet are the way they are is not the point of this discussion." Cavil said, stopping the two who would no doubt get into a meaningless hour long debate on the planet. "The goal is to decide whether or not were going to do the universe a favor and rid it of humanity."

The two were silent momentary, then the Four finally spoke up. "Our model has decided it's just not worth it. We can die now, the rebels destroyed the Resurrection Hub. Chances are the humans will most likely stay at Earth anyway."

"The only offensive ships they have are one damaged Basestar, a beaten up, outdated Battlestar, and a small number of fighters. And for once, we know there not going anywhere. We have them outgunned."

The two considered this. After a few seconds, the Five Spoke. "We still have three Basestars that haven't left our fleet. We know the Fours have two, and yours makes six."

"Thats more then enough." Cavil argued

"And what about the planet?" the Four pointed to his Dradis sheet. "The Raider made note of the native population having certain abilities. They can manipulate certain elements, like earth or water, even fire. Since we've never seen humans who can do this before, it might be worth it to experiment with them and figure it out."

Cavil looked down at his Dradis sheet again. "There still human. Why should they be treated differently?"

The Four glared at Cavil.

"Fine, fine, lets comprise. These Dradis charts give us a pretty good idea of where most of the inhabited areas of the planet are. We hit ninety five percent of the population with nukes, destroy the fleet, and take the survivors for study. Deal?"

The Four considered this. "Agreed." He stood up, the Five and Cavil did so as well. "I'll inform the Basestars, transmit the Dradis records and jump coordinates to our database.

Cavil grinned. It seemed an appropriate human response. "Consider it done."

Laura Roslin walked into the busy room that was Galactica's CIC. After taking her medication, she had decided that it was about time they started heading back to the planet. She had finally come up with a plan, and intended to share it with Adama.

After walking past a number of consoles, she finally spotted him next to Katara, who had taken an intense interest in the central Dradis display. She supposed he had finally found somebody to take them on that tour.

Roslin stood next to him while he talked to somebody she couldn't name about ship functions, she knew better then to disturb him, and waited her turn. After about a minute, Adama nodded to the man, who walked away. Adama sighed and turned around, noticing Roslin.

"Sorry to keep you waiting." He said.

"It's ok. How are the Guests?"

Adama looked at Katara. "Very curious."

"Good." She smiled, which quickly disappeared and was replaced by a far more serious face. "We need to go back."

Adama knew this was coming. "Do you have any ideas?"

"Actually yes. The kids and Bumi spoke of a city, Ba Seng Sa. We can send them and acouple of people from Galactica to go down, check it out, report back, and go from there. Perhaps Aang can use his influence to arrange some sort of meeting with there officials."

"Did you have anybody in mind?"

This was going to be the hard part. "Kara Thrace and Lee Adama."

As hard it was to believe, Adama's face became surprised followed by a more serious look then before after hearing his sons name. "Lee doesn't have to go, he retired."

Lee Adama, William's son, had retired from the Colonial military and had even become a lawyer, helping defend Guias Baltar in a trail he had had several months ago, a trail Baltar had been found innocent at.

"I know, Bill, but he's somebody we can trust not to frak up down there. Right now, the situation is _very _fragile. Word has probably spread about us everywhere by now, we didn't exactly make a subtle entrance."

Adama sat down. "Lee doesn't have to be the one to go. There's plenty of other people that can go with Kara."

"I know he doesn't have to go Bill, but ask him. If something happens down there we need to know that nobody gets hurt, and Lee is the only one the ship that's proven himself."

Adama sighed. "Fine." He stood up, "Ill talk to him, but I won't promise anything."

Roslin smiled. "Thank you." She started walking out of the CIC.

"Laura," Adama said, stopping her half way, "somethings wrong."

Roslin stopped and turned around. "You just noticed?"

"The scriptures said that Earth was real, right?"

"Yes…"

"They also said that the one who led them to Earth, you, would die before she reached the promise land."

Roslin had known this for the three years they had been on this journey. Hours before the Cylon attack on the Twelve Colonies, she had been diagnosed with cancer. It had been stopped more then a year ago, though recently had shown up again.

"I don't know Bill. I wish I did."

"When was the last time you took your medicine?"

"Not an hour ago."

"Before then?"

Roslin thought for a moment. She hadn't taken her medicine since they had arrived at the planet. She only took it when she felt ill, and hadn't been for days. "I don't remmember."

"You should go see Cottle." Adama said in a sharp tone.

Roslin considered objecting, but decided it was for the best. "Fine, I have some things to do on Colonial One, ill make an appiontment-"

"Now."

Laura decided that obeying Adama was in the best intrests of the fleet. "Fine, ill go now. And you will talk to Lee, right?"

"Yes, go."

"Good luck." With that, Laura finally left Galactica's CIC.

* * *

So that just left Adama, the three kids, who were becoming a distraction to the crew, and the fourty or so people. He picked up the phone next to the Dradis console and typed in a few numbers. Hopefully Tigh hasn't gotten himself drunk yet…

Aang still didn't know if he fully trusted the visitors. Sure, they helped rescued Bumi, and from what they said they had saved Katara's life, but he was still wary of them. Killing was easy for them, he watched the woman named Kara Thrace use her strange weapon to kill the Fire Nation solders without a second thought. Mabye the Fire Nation would have killed them if she hadn't, but the thought of such powerful people living here scared him to some degree, though he knew that with their level of technolegy they could have picked any part of the planet, killed anybody who was living there, and settled down without any hope of major resistance, so mabey they could have peace. Katara seemed to trust them, even seemed to be making friends with Kara, while Sokka continued getting on their nerves. _If Katara trusts them, they have to be ok, right? _His thought was interrupted when he saw Adama walking towards him.

"Hi." Aang tried to sound happy in his voice, he didn't know if he fully succeeded.

"Aang, I just spoke with Roslin. We've decided that since Katara has fully recovered it's time we returned you. You recall us asking for your help in contacting Ba Seng Sa?"

"What do you want us to do again?" Aang asked nervously.

Adama sighed. _Why, of all the people on the planet we could have run into, We have to get our help form a group of teenagers. "_The Earth King is more likely to talk to somebody like you, somebody who they can trust. If you can convince them were friendly, it's going to make our job a lot easier."

Aang tried to understand what he was talking about. Adama continued.

"The three of you are going to return to the surface with Kara and another person. We ask you to guide them through the city, Their jobs are mostly determining if the Earth Kingdom are the right people to negotiate with."

"Ok, and what happens if they aren't?"

"Then we'll have to come up with a plan B. Go get your friends, and come back to me, I'll have the ships XO show you to Kara, then you can brief her on what to expect in the city."

Aang looked confused again. "Whats an XO?"

"Just go get your friends..."

Aang smiled again. "Ok!"

Adama sat down in a chair next to the central Dradis display. He wondered if everybody on Earth was like them.

"You want me to do _what?"_ That was the reaction from Lee Adama when he was first asked by Tigh, who had been sent to ask permission after Adama was forced to stay on the CIC, to get the three kids ready. "You want me to babysit a group of _children?"_

"I know it sound stupid, When Bill first told me he was bringing a group of kids to the fleet I thought he was crazy, but over three years we've trusted him, and he hasn't frakked up yet, if he thinks this is what's best..."

"How can _anybody _think 'whats best' for the fleet is to let a group of adolescents be our tour guides? Remmember how you were at that age, thinking you knew everything, careless, and were supposed to trust them to not frak up?" Lee spoke quickly, frustration in his voice. Ever since the arrival at the planet and the initial visits, nobody other then those aboard _Galactica _trying to make contact with the planetary population ever went down to the surface. Three years of waiting combined with dwindling food and water supplies with such a vast source right below them quickly caused riots throughout the Colonial Fleet.

Tigh took a deep breath. _I Hope you know what your doing Bill. _"One of the kids, a boy named Aang, he's supposed to be what the natives call an 'avatar,' a figure who apparently carries a great deal of influence, something about spirit and magic. If we can-"

"_Magic!" _Lee almost yelled out. _"Three Years of running from the Cylons and your solution is magic!"_

"You must have read the reports Lee, We don't know how and right now we don't care. Please, Bill needs you, the president even asked for you specifically. They both trust you, and we need somebody who they know wont screw up down there with the kids. Right now if were not referred to as sky people were known as demons. We need you."

Lee quickly stood up from his chair and paced across the room, stopping at his desk. He sighed. "Fine." He turned around and faced Saul. "I'll go, but I want another raptor and a full security team standing by and ready to launch within thirty seconds if something goes wrong."

Saul resisted the urge to smile, stood up, looked Lee in the eye, and said a brief, sincere, thank you. "The old man said to be ready within the hour. Don't be late, and try to meet the kids before you leave, they may surprise you." Lee nodded. "Good. Get ready." With that, Saul Tigh left the room, allowing himself to smile briefly in victory when faced away from Lee.

Lee Adama let out a sigh when Tigh left the room. He wondered if the flight deck had already gotten rid of his uniform.

"One, Two, Three, Go!"

the visiting trio, after the tour of the ship, had been escorted to the massive port hanger pod. Kara went to get ready for the trip, and had shown the tree a game she learned as a a kid to keep them occupied, and out of trouble. The last thing they needed was to be testing out the effects of air bending when applied in space, especially with maintenance crews already on edge. She had called it 'Rock, Paper, Scissors.' The game was one of only luck, Paper beat Rock, Rock beat sciccors, scissors beat paper, paper beat rock, they both choose a hand signal and showed it to the other at the exact same time. It seemed childish and immature to Kara Thrace, though for some reason the kids found it fun. Aang had been playing with Katara for five rounds.

"Thats three for me, two for you." Katara said, grinning in victory. Aang tried to return the smile. Sokka watched amused.

"Fine." Aang leaned back, they were all sitting on the ground, for some reason there were no chairs to be found. "You win, lets do something else."

"Ok..." the girl said, thinking. "So... What do you think? Of, what was it called? _Glac-Teca?_"

"No no no!" Sokka cried out. "_Golec-Taca."_ The two looked at him with confused faces. "jeez, you guys need to pay closer attention."

Aang decided it was best to ignore him. "It's big, but the people..." He glanced briefly at the flight crew nearby preparing a raptor for launch. "I don't know if there good people. Remember at the prison? They used those weapons against the Fire Nation, they killed them, and didn't think twice about it. Killing was easy for them." He looked down, trying not to show his worry. "I don't know if these are the right people to come here."

"Aang, look, if Kara hadn't fought the Fire Nation guards they wouldn't have thought twice about killing _us. _Or capturing, torturing, _then _killing us. And they rescued Bumi, so there trying to help and... Kara seems nice." She smiled at him again.

Aang returned a weak smile. "I guess your right, but... I don't know. This space ship was built to kill things, the airships were built to kill things, in the Air Temples we used air for good things."

"Don't worry. I'm sure when this is over everything will be ok. Maybe they can even help us with the comet. And there taking us to Ba Seng Sa, so you can find an Earth Bending teacher, and..." She saw Kara walking over to them. "There's Kara, lets go talk to her."

Starbuck's relation with Lee Adama had always been an interesting one. They had always been good friends, before the Cylon attack on the Twelve Colonies. Over the last three years it had seen many interesting changes. From working together on missions to hanging out on New Caprica before the Cylon occupation. There close friendship, and for a short time more then that, had always brought her comfort. And what tension they had suffered over a year ago had all but vanished, a thought she was grateful for. Starbuck knew William Adama thought of her like a daughter, and was planning on giving him nothing less then absolute perfection, especially with something so important.

"Hey, it's about time to go. Were just waiting on somebody, and then we should go. The sooner this is over with the better." She gestured towards the raptor.

Lee Adama walked into the flight deck for the first time since returning from Omashu. He hadn't forgotten about the smell of oil and sweat that seemed to make the room feel unique. He quickly got sight of the ready to depart raptor, and Kara Thrace. She was with the kids. He made note of them, one of them was a small bald child with... was that an _arrow _on his head? A girl with two, long, ponytails, and a boy with his hair also in a ponytail, taller then the other two. The taller boy and girl looked similar, related maybe? _Differences in Culture, _he told himself, _not weird, just different. _

Lee approached the four. He said a brief hello to Kara, and gestured to the small boy to shake his hand. "I'm Lee, I'll be coming with you." He tried his best not to stare at the blue arrow on the boys head.

"Hi. The boy gave a wide smile that made Lee feel slightly better about this. He shook the other two teenager's hands, then looked at Starbuck. "Where are we supposed to be landing?"

"Aang gave us some directions, we showed him a Dradis map of the city and surrounding areas. Were landing ten miles out, so it's a bit of a walk, but with luck nobody sees us landing and sends every solider in the city to kill the 'sky demons.'" Lee let out a small, brief laugh at this.

"From there were supposed to head over to the city gate. Katara," She glanced briefly at the teenaged girl to indicate that was her name, "She carries a lot of clothes around. She had enough stuff lying around to make us new sets of clothing, so we should hopefully fit in."

"Yeah, but I didn't know your sizes, so I don't know how we'll they'll fit. She reached into her bag and pulled out several articles of clothing.

"We can change on the surface, we need our uniforms, it's routine stuff. Anyway, we are _not, _under _any _circumstances, to make direct contact. This is just to get a general evaluation of the Earth Kingdom. Ask a few questions, figure out where to find who's in charge, but that's it. The closest gate to our landing zone is south west of where our position will be." She started walking towards the raptor, "lets go."

Six was an odd name. Then again, so was Three, Eight, Five, One, and a few other numbers the Cylon models refereed to themselves as. However, _she _was no _ordinary _six. She was _Caprica _six. She had been the one in a relationship with Doctor Guias Baltar, and created the back doors in Colonial defenses that left the Colonies defenseless. She realized now how huge the mistake of the attack was, the sin they had committed. After the attack had exceeded even the most optimistic hopes of Cylon victory, with almost no losses, she was seen as a hero among the Cylon.

Caprica walked into the main control room of the Basestar, the Cylon equivalent of a CIC. The Three, D'anna, an an Eight, a Sharon, were also there. She approached the two. D'anna spoke to her.

"We've been waiting for days, and the Humans are launching craft to the surface. _We _need to do something." She spoke with a tone of authority. The Threes were good at that, surpassed by only the Ones.

"What do think we should do? The Humans would try to stop us if we tried landing, there trying to contact the planets natives."

"We need to do something, this is _our _planet to. We won't let the Humans stop us from gathering resources and land just because a few primitiev people were there first. They can't possibly put up a fight if they've got something we want."

"Didn't you hear the reports from the humans?" The Eight spoke up. "The natives, there not normal, they can manipulate the ground, water, one person can even move air. How is that possible?"

"A curious question that can be explored _after _we've created an empire on the surface. Somewhere far from the humans, they don't trust us, and I don't trust them. The only reason they haven't tried to shoot us yet is that we'd blast there Civilian fleet or find a way to contact Cavil's Basestar to screw them over before were destroyed. The moment we let our guard down they will cross us, it's the human way."

"You don't know them D'anna." Eight reached her hand into a clear, liquid control. "Something wrong, the scans of the Heavy Raider's bay haven't been completed yet."

"unexpected delays, the signal that brought us here might be interfering with our computer systems."

"The humans are unaffected by the signal. Maybe Cavil somehow..." She paused thinking how frakked they would be if what she was suggesting was true. "Sabotaged our systems and told the raider to leave?"

"Impossible." D'anna said almost immediately. "We wiped our computer systems of standard Cylon coding and replaced them before we even came in contact with the human fleet. Cavil could never have done anything. The scans will reveal whats going on, be patient."

Eight removed her hand. "The humans would trust us more if we cooperated with them. Combine resources, work together to scout the system."

"And you never told us who the final Cylon was." Caprica Six quickly added to Eight's suggestion. "You said it wasn't in the Colonial Fleet."

There were twelve Cylon models. Seven were present in Cylon society. The other five, the 'final five,' the Cylons weren't aloud to talk about until recently. Nobody knew who they were. D'anna, the three, was obsessed with finding out who they were. She went to the temple of Five, located on a planet the Cylons had found _Galactica _getting food at after it's own stockpile had been poisioned. She saw the faces of the five, an act forbidden, and this combined with disobeying the consensus of the Cylon to pull there heavy raiders away from the planet when _Galactica _was threatening to launch it's nukes at the temple caused them to shut the Three's down, permanently. D'anna was the only Three online, or alive, if that was really the term. She had revealed four of the Cylons, one of whom was Saul Tigh, but never told the identity of the final Cylon.

D'anna's face looked insulted. "It's unimportant right now, we'll worry about the Cylon later." She turned away and placed her hand in the liquid.

"Whats the harm in telling us?" No response from D'anna. "There from the planet, aren't they?" D'anna froze momentarily, then resumed her posture. "Unless your lying. But why would you lie? What would you gain?"

"Leoben sayed the hybrid mentioned one of the humans as the 'harbringer of death,' is it her?" Eight questioned. D'anna appeared _very_ annoyed.

"She wasn't on the fleet at the time. In fact a number of humans weren't. Maybe it's a human who died?" Caprica turned to the Sharon. "Assuming it's on the planet, how could they have gotten there?"

"_How about you shut up and focus on more Important things!" _D'anna snapped at the two. She took a breath. "I'm sorry. Look, we can worry about it later. Just do something else right now."

Six and Eight glanced at each other. Both left the room to speculate on there own.

Ok... It is now... _glances at computer clock _six thirty in the morning and I haven't slept. Going to bed right now feels like admitting defeat. Sorry again for taking so long to update, and hopefully going deeper into nBSG stuff doesn't frak this fan fiction up.

Also, while none of you really care and ninety percent of you have realized this is AN and have hit the back button, I tried shortening the time to write this by typing at school. For some reason I was embarrassed by writing there, so that idea goes out the window, and having to use Microsoft office 2007 instead of open office doesn't help.

Merry assorted religious holidays, and happy 2009.


	16. Chapter 16

wow. For anybody who saw last nights episode of BSG... I wont spoil it, but for those of you up to date with the current BSG universe, and you've made it this far into the fanfiction so I'm assuming you are, go to and watch the episode. Now. Why are you still reading this? GO WATCH IT NOW.

Also, I've realized going into the 'Final Cylon' and Roslin cancer thingy was a very bad idea. Ill try not to do that again.

* * *

Aang was amazed at the raptors abilities. The raptor decended into the planet at speeds that would make Appa look like a snail in comparison. The ride was smooth, usually going a fraction of the speed Aang could feel the wind pushing against him and feeling like he was going to be blown off any second. The small ship lowered into a tiny clearing in a nearby forest. Did they plan to land in exactly this spot?

Kara Thrace played with the various controls on the raptors cockpit and signaled Galactica, confirming they had made a perfect landing. She talked with Lee for a moment and then looked at the three teenagers.

"Alright, you know the plan. The city is about 10 miles out, we should be there in a few hours if we hurry. Galactica expects us to check in in 18 hours, if we haven't they'll assume somethings gone wrong. Grab your stuff and lets go."

_What stuff? _Aang watched Katara grab her bag and remove the costumes for Kara and Lee. They looked a size to small. She handed the clothes to Kara, she and Lee went outside to change. Two minutes later they were on there way. Kara was wearing a blue shirt and pants that looked like a larger version of Katara's, while Lee wore a tan and green colored pair of clothes with the Earth Kingdom symbol sewn into the fabric.

Kara thought the outfits looked ridiculous, judging by Lee's face he was having similar thoughts. "I'll take point, you three stick with Lee. We don't know for sure if anybody saw us land. She grabbed her sidearm from her chair and concealed it inside her shirt. Lee did the same with his.

Outside Kara noticed the forest was actually very pretty. She could hear the sounds of animals in the distance and the sky was clear. This was the first time she could actually look around on the planet. The first time ended up with her in a fight in under five minutes, the second was focused on a rescue mission. She decided to enjoy the walk while she could. _So this is Earth. _

Gauis Baltar paced across his cell in the brig of _Galactica. _Azula had been silently watching him for fifteen minutes. At least he thought it was that long, it was impossible to keep track of time because nobody had bothered to put up a clock. He knew that he was going to be put on trial any day now, if it weren't for the dealing with the planets natives he probably would have been shoved out an airlock already. Maybe it would have been better for him if Earth had been a nuclear wasteland, at least there would have been a use for him!

He shoot a nervous glance at the girl. Did she ever blink? He sat down. He quickly remembered her cell was straight ahead of his, and the bench mounted to the wall didn't help him. He stood up and started pacing again. He stopped and looked at Azula again.

"What!" He yelled at her. "What the frak do you want?"

Azula laughed quietly to herself. "Roslin told me why your here. She stood up and crossed her arms. "She told me about the Cylons. There my kind of people. One of the few who actually have the right idea of how to control people. On New Caprica they used fear to keep you under there power. The Fire Nation does the same thing to it's own."

Baltar froze momentarily, then sat back down on the bench. "What a lovely people you Fire Nation are."

"Well it works doesn't it? Our methods have made us the worlds strongest empire for a hundred years, and the Cylons have conquered you, haven't they?"

_Standard teenaged stupidity.... _"You can't control a society with fear alone. The Cylons occupation of New Caprica was a disaster, and from what I heard at Omashu the Fire Nation have spread it's forces so thin to crush the Earth Kingdom rebellions it'll be a miracle if you can take any more of there territory."

Azula grinned. "When The Cylons come and lead us to victory you'll think otherwise."

"Cylons aren't the most cooperative of people, you know."

"As soon as they come they will realize we both work for the same interests. You will see."

"Right." Baltar layed down on his bench.

The brig door opened loudly. Laura Roslin walked inside and briefly spoke to one of the guards. She was holding a small bag. The door closed again. She looked at Baltar briefly and walked over to Azula.

"Hello again." Was all Azula said to her.

Roslin took a small pile of papers out of her bag. "These are documents for our terms and requests. If you have any questions or changes you wish to make it is stated we have begun setting up a small base in your land, you can go there to talk to us. She held out the papers.

Azula took them and glanced briefly at the thick stack. The cover said 'TERMS OF COLONIAL SETTLEMENT' at the top. Azula looked through the first few pages, which were filled with words and a few highly detailed pictures with clearly marked land indicating where the Fire Nation weren't supposed to go.

"We want you to give it to the Fire Lord. There are also terms for you to begin peace talks with the other two nations."

Azula eyes widened and looked up at Roslin."Your joking, right?"

"We will not stand by and watch you kill each other in a pointless war where neither side accomplishes nothing other then more deaths and more tragedies.

"And how do you intend to make us?"

"It should be clear that you don't have a choice. You saw what we did at the prison, and that was during a covert operation with limited supplies that weren't intended to be used in a combat situation. Do you _really _want to annoy us by not listening?"

Azula was trying to tell whether or not Laura was serious.

"Oh, and the tiny detail that we are currently making plans to destroy Solzins comet."

Azula dropped the papers on the floor. Then she started laughing. "You really expect me to believe you can destroy a comet?

"Expect? No. But we do have the ability and we already have our experts preparing the weapons to do it with. The method we have used is detailed in the forms I gave you. You will be escorted to the surface and dropped off nearby a city. You will follow the agreed terms. Goodbye." Laura walked to the door and got the guards. They opened the cell door and took Azula. She didn't resist following. Laura collected the papers Azula had thrown on the ground and followed them.

Nobody noticed Baltar sitting up and listening closely, who amusingly waved goodbye to the girl at the last second.

"Theres the gate!" Aang yelled happily. After three hours of walking they had finally made it to the city. They were not, as far as they could tell, followed, nobody appeared to have seen them land. He used his airbending to launch himself fifty feet closer to the gate then everybody else.

Kara hated dealing with normal kids. Dealing with super kids with the ability to frak around with the laws of physics didn't change her attitude. "_AANG! STOP!" _she ran after him.

Katara rolled her eyes and looked at Lee.. "He doesn't like to follow instructions. Trust me."

"Don't worry, neither does Kara." he smiled.

Kara had caught up to Aang and grabbed his shoulder and was saying something that was inaudible at Lee's distance. Though from the look on the teenaged boys face, Kara seemed to have finally gotten to him. Aang had Lee's pity. After a minute the rest of the group caught up with the two and continued on there path to the gate. The city itself was amazing to Lee, it was nothing like one of the massive metropolis you would find on Caprica or any other world in the Twelve Colonies, it was protected at all angles by a gigantic wall of Earth that reached up for hundreds of feet, with guard towers and fortresses adding additional protection to what Lee guessed was the most impenetrable city in the Earth Kingdom, if not the planet. Above the wall reached dozens of structures also made of solid rock, the tallest of which had a large Earth Kingdom flag proudly displayed at the top.

"Nice" He muttered to Kara.

"Yeah." She looked forward at the gate, which was guarded by what looked like at least a dozen guards wearing armor. There was a small line waiting for entry, Kara guessed they were checking in with the guards, She made sure her sidearm was still tucked safely where nobody could find it, though if somehow they did it was doubtful at best they would know what it was.

Once they reached the gate the few that had been waiting in line had made it in, giving the group hope for a quick entry into the city. Kara smiled at one of the guards that approached her.

"State your business." he said in a deep voice.

"Our associates want us to check the city for a few things." Kara resisted the urge to grin at how little the guard knew of what she meant by _'associates' _

"How long do you intend to stay?"

"No less then a day."

"And your bringing your kids?"

Starbuck glanced at the three. "It's a long story."

The guard looked at her a moment longer. "Fine. Stay out of trouble, if you don't ill know." He stood aside and aloud the three entrance.

Inside the city hundreds of people were going about there daily lives, some carrying baskets or purses, others were visiting local shops or getting food. This was the first time Kara had seen a city this busy in over three years, while Lee's previous visit to Omashu left him and the people with him far more noticed.

"So, what now? Find a tour guide, visit the souvenir shop..." Lee Adama said sarcastically while continuing to survey the area.

"All the Admiral and President wanted was to get some basic info on the Earth Kingdom. How there government is structured, current political status, and anything we can get our hands on. Aang, do you anyplace that we could get some information from?"

Aang, who had been playing with a piece of string he had found laying around at the gate stopped and looked at Kara. "Um... I don't know."

Kara sighed at turned to Katara. "_He _is supposed to be the planets last hope?"

"You should have seen him when we first got him out of the Iceberg." She grinned.

Kara blinked in surprised "_What?"_

"Nevermind. Anyway I'm sure we could find somebody to ask."

"They would think were crazy, we'd ask to much. Isn't there a news source or anything?"

"Why don't we find a library or something? They might have books we could bring back to.... Galactica?

"Ok, fine. Lee, you, Aang, and Sokka go that way and try to find a library or something similar." Kara pointed towards one of cities buisiest streets. "Me and Katara will go this way, meet back here in one hour."

"Yes sir." Lee said in an amused voice, which angered Starbuck. Over the years he had developed a talent for it. "Come on kids." he gestured towards the street Kara had pointed out and began walking, the two followed him. Starbuck smiled at Katara and said "Lead the way."

A bright, white flash of light momentarily lit up space for a brief moment. Then three more identical flashes appeared soon after. The starfish like designs of the Cylon Basestars moved with surprising agility as they prepared without any hesitation for the next jump.

Over the course of there journey, the Fours, who lead two Basestars, a third of the fleet, had left the Cylons not even bothering to say goodbye and just jumped to a different position then agreed, not leaving any notice behind.. Either they had miscalculated the jump, in which case they would go back to the original coordinates and recalculate there FTL drives. Unless they jumped into the middle of a star. But the odds of them being even a fraction of a percent off was infinitesimal, Cylon computers made the computers used on the aging Galactica and the Colonial fleet look like antiques. They still waited ten minutes, which would have been plenty of time to correct any error, and then continued on there path to Earth.

This left Cavil rather annoyed. Four ships would be more then enough to handle both the humans and the rebels, but what happened to the fours concerned him greatly. One of the Cavils would meet with one of the Fives later to discuss what they would do about them. After one of the Sharons broke away from the consensus of her model, other Fours, Fives, and even a small number of Ones had been doing the same.

Cavil continued to contemplated this as the basestar jumped again, moving that much closer to the planet Earth.

Short chapter... but I wanted to post something.


	17. Chapter 17

I want to say thank you to everybody who has reviewed this. When I started writing this I was worried people would see the concept and go 'What the frak, this is a stupid idea!' and reviews have been the only thing motivating me to write... thank you so very much!

We'll, it's taken a lot of time but I'm finally sitting down and updating this story. I'm thinking of doing some major edits to previous chapters and completely cutting out the final 5 themes and related stuff, when I was writing this last BSG was still on it's mid-season hiatus and I was spending a good deal of time coming up with Final Cylon Theories, which I stupidly started putting in here. Now it just seems silly. Would that be a good idea?

* * *

Many years ago Kara Thrace would make regular trips to the library. The Colonies never completely got over there fear of computers after the first Cylon war, and networks were few and far between in civilian business, meaning that if you wanted to learn more about a specific subject you would actually have to read a physical book to satisfy your curiosity.

As Kara looked through the Earth Kingdom library, there were dozens of instantly noticeable differences. For one, it was a lot dirtier. She looked through the shelves containing books and the occasional scroll. Most had writing on the cover, indicating a title or a short summery. Others had pictures that were drawn into the books.

"What exactly are we looking for?" Katara asked her.

"Were supposed to get a feel for what the Earth Kingdom is like, so making contact with them will be much easier. What better place to get information then a library?"

"I guess..." Katara occasionally picked up a book, glanced through it, and put it back. This was normal every day stuff for her, she was expecting that following the space people- _Colonials, _she reminded herself, would be a bit more exciting. However this was there groups first visit to a major city where they didn't have to worry about the Fire Nation, so she enjoyed the relative safety. "I'm going to look around, come get me when your ready to leave."

"Don't leave the building." Kara was just as bored as Katara, although she wouldn't admit it. Her place was fighting Cylons, defending the Colonial fleet, not this. But she still knew how important her mission was, and wouldn't let her feelings get in the way of the mission. She glanced at pile of scrolls located in a bin, the sign over it read "_Stores of the Resistance." _She picked one up. It was a newsletter detailing how the war was going, or word from an occupied city, and letters from the rebellions. The front page article, however, made her freeze.

'_Air People Bring the fight to Fire Nation again; Free King Bumi."_

As Kara read the article, she tried to decide how to react. There were references to another offensive made by the 'Air People,' so they knew about there mission to free Adama, Roslin, and herself. The Earth Kingdom seemed to regard them as heroes, people who bravely fought the Fire Nation to free the Earth Kindgom. Bumi had apparently made it back to a city, the article quoted him several times. Bumi detailed how the Air People had saved them, there weapons and technology, and the sky ship they departed with. Kara walked up to the front counter.

"Excuse me, do you have another article about the 'Air People,' anywhere?" She felt stupid using the term Air People. But then again, what else could they call them?

"Sure, give me a second." He reached under the desk and retrieved a scroll. "These things have been selling like crazy, thats the last one."

Kara thanked him, and started reading. It was from when they first arrived. Dozens of sky ships had appeared out of nowhere, landing in there cities. She skimmed through the rest, some first-hand stories from people who had contact with people from the sky ships. She was glad Adama had ordered all ships back the second he got back to _Galactica. _

"You know there working with the Avatar." The man at the desk said to her. "Maybe he summoned them, I think they have to be the remnants of the Air Nomads. There's no way the Fire Nation could have killed them all, and no other explanation for there sky ships."

"Yeah, Maybe." She finished reading the article.

"So are you going to buy that?"

"Um... No thank you." She handed it back to him, and ran over to Katara. "It's time to go."

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"Marker 17 down... 3 to go" Sharon Valerii reported. "I've got signs of a moderate Tylium deposits in a half dozen of these asteroids, enough to fuel the fleet for the next decade."

"That should take us pretty far." Helo responded, rechecking his instruments. "Were not going anywhere for awhile."

The raptor's recon mission to explore the rest of the solar system had been uneventful. So far they had identified seven other planetary bodies, and had just finished checking out the asteroid field between the fourth and fifth planets. Tylium was a rare and extremely valuable resource, which could be turned into fuel or refined into metals or electronic devices. It could help build more ships and make the fleets life much easier. Only about 18 out of the thousands of asteroids they had scanned revealed any trace of the material. Most had only traces, but two were filled with the stuff.

"Ok, whats next on the list?" Helo got ready to input the new FTL coordinates into the computer.

"A comet, a few AU's from here. Adama made it clear that we needed to take a _very _close look at it.

"It's a comet, there's a thousand others in this system alone. Whats so special about it?"

"I didn't talk to him long enough to get into specifics, something to do with the natives on Earth. Apparently the signal that brought us here originated from this thing. Adama wants us to find out whats causing the transmission, and to check what materials make it up. He said to check for weaker points in it, he wants to blow it to pieces."

Helo laughed. "We'll, between the benders, the kids, and the stories I've heard from the planet it isn't the weirdest thing I've heard in awhile."

"Good point. I'm uploading the coordinates now, starting the countdown."

"Confirming. Ok, coordinates set. Jumping now!"

The raptor vanished in a flash of light.

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Aang lead Lee through the crowd of people. There were hundreds, maybe even thousands. They were in a market, though you could barely tell at first glance. It was completely outside, with carts and small shops to buy and sell items. People were buying bread, fruits, clothes, toys, drinks, and dozens of other odds and ends. Unfortunately they didn't have any money. Sokka was eying a collection of swords and other weapons one of the merchants was selling, while Aang was talking with Lee.

"It doesn't seem all that different from life on the Colonies" Lee Adama thought aloud. After years of being on the run, being in a large, open area with hundreds of people in a genuine market place was a thrilling experience. Even on the failed settlement of New Caprica people were struggling and just barely making ends meets, nothing even close to this scale emerged in the short time he was there.

Aang was eating a small number of peanuts a kind woman had handed out earlier. "What were cities like on Caprica?"

The thought of Caprica City, the capitol city of his home planet was a distant memory, but still one of great remorse. "There amazing," he began. "Buildings were so tall they almost reach the sky, they even make Ba Seng Sa look small."

"What did you do for fun?" The boy inquired.

"There were sports, just like here. People played outside, watched TV, really not all that different."

Aang made a confused face. "Whats a TV?"

_Oh, right, these people don't even have electricity. _"Never mind. Aang, have you been to this city before?"

"Yeah, about a hundred years ago. I think a few things have changed since then. Before the war I used to come here all the time!"

Lee blinked in surprise. "The war started _one hundred years ago. _What do you mean 'before the war?"

"Oh, right, I was frozen in an iceberg before the war, then Katara and Sokka got me out. Thats when I learned about this 'save-the-world' destiny thing."

"_You can't freeze yourself in an ice..." _Lee realized he had raised his voice a little to loud. "Forget it. Tell it to the admiral at the next briefing, I'm sure doc Cottle will be _fascinated _by you."

The small boy was nice, Lee thought, but far to immature for something like this. He looked odd, with his bald head, but seemed likable under the right circumstances. Unfortunately these weren't the right kind. He made sure nobody was watching them and pulled out a small, portable camera. If anybody saw it they didn't care enough to ask what it was. To them it was just an oddly shaped piece of plastic. He took a few pictures, his father would want them later.

Over the next twenty minutes the trio observed a show that a group of Earth Benders put on, they literally created there own boulders by manipulating the ground benath them, tearing out chunks of rock without touching the ground, and bringing the boulders created moments ago a foot or two above the ground. There were four teams of two, the first person would create the boulder, while the second behind them would shape the Earth into a small wall, and thrust there hand forward, causing the boulder to rush forward. The objective seemed to be to push the boulder as far away from the starting point as possible.

The younger Adama managed to purchase a book titled "POLITICS OF THE EARTH KINDGOM' by trading it for his hat that he brought along. To him it was just a piece of cloth, but it seemed to amuse the people on the surface. Overall the mission felt more like shore leave then intel gathering, recording little data of use. However the book seemed to contain a large amount of information into the Earth Kingdoms government, and that alone would satisfy the experts on the fleet.

The trio regrouped with Kara and Katara ten minutes later. Katara bended a body of water from her canteen into the air, turned it into ice, and made the frozen substance land in the viper pilot's hands. Lee walked up to her and the two exchanged amused glances.

"Katara's a water bender... they can control ice to, i'm guessing maybe even water in a gas state.

"I can heal people to." the teenaged girl added, smiling. "Fire bending isn't the _only _kind out there, you know.

"It's the kind we've been having to deal with." Kara responded. She remembered her reaction weeks ago when she saw it for the first time. She thought she was dreaming. "Lee, somethings wrong. The people already have an opinion on us."

"I'd be disappointed if they didn't." This lead to a confused look on Katara's face. "Kara, we _landed on top of them. _We came out of nowhere, started shooting up the Fire Nation, and rescued one of there leaders. We've had a huge impact on the planet."

Kara continued, "They think were heroes, that we've been summoned by the avatar to save there collective asses and restore _peace _and _balance _to the spirits." She said the last part of the sentence with obvious annoyance.

"We'll, at least they don't think were demons. Lee smiled and gestured towards the hill there raptor had landed in. "After you?"

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"_I don't give a frak if it's there planet!_" a woman yelled across the small room. She was one of twelve people seated in an orderly fashion on board the spaceship Colonial One. They made up a body of Colonial government referred to as the Quorum of Twelve, each member representing a planet of the former Twelve Colonies. They were in charge of discussing issues vital to the fleet, and voting on the ultimate outcome of the debates. Lee Adama was a member of the quorum, representing the former planet Caprica. A member of the Quorum had nominated him over a year ago, and he had won. Over the years they had crossed every issue, from simple things like maintenance on a mining ship to banning abortion to help the species survive. As soon as Intel mission returned to Galactica, a meeting was called to discuss what exactly would be done about the planet, and the Fire Nation.

"Madam president," the woman began again, in a calmer voice, "With all due respect, we are running desperately low on food, water, and medical care, and have been since before we arrived. I understand our responsibility to respect the native population but a line must be drawn. And it must be drawn at the continued survival of _our,_ species, not them" she concluded. "The planet below is rich in water and food, we need to get our people down there and provide the fleet relief!"

President Roslin, who stood in the front of the room with Kara Thrace and Admiral Adama, took a deep breath and began: "I understand your concerns, and I sympathize with your position, but if we are to show respect to the native population we must acknowledge their claims on land, now if you recall I did authorize raptor parties to began transporting water from-"

"Small craft brining up fractions of what we need. We have _forty thousand_ mouths to feed madam president, and if we can hope to survive we must-"

"Enough!" Adama shouted, silencing the room instantly. "Now, we have begun plans to make contact with a region of power on the planet known as the 'Earth Kingdom.' You've all received the briefing; I shouldn't have to explain what we've been up to again."

"You expect us to take the military seriously while you send children alongside officers? And ignoring the Cylon baseship that's sitting outside this window as we speak is a grave mistake, especially as seven weeks ago it launched an unauthorized-"

"...An accidental command. The ship was badly damaged when we arrived. For all we know the raider, the hanger, or both could have malfunctioned. The Cylons are working on an answer. The ship operates in ways we can't begin to imagine." He paused. "Now, We've called this meeting to review everything we know about the planet, to finalize plans for settlement, and to debate a very unique topic regarding the planet's most powerful empire: The Fire Nation. And we have some very special guests. Mrs Thrace, if you will,"

Kara nodded in acknowledgement, and opened the door behind the President. A small boy with a bald head wearing orange cloths, a teenaged girl wearing her blue outfit and her brother dressed much the same walked into the room.

The twelve talked among themselves for several moments before the president called them to order.

"These are the children who accompanied Starbuck and Apollo on the intel mission on planet Earth, in the city of Ba Seng Sa." Kara raised her voice and changed her tone slightly. "We've come to know an empire on the planet that calls itself the Fire Nation. While we still have little data on the planet we know that the Fire Nation are currently at war with the Earth Kingdom and Water Tribe, and have been for the past century." She paused and let the Quorom take that in.

"And we know it's a war of conquest: The Fire Nation is attacking and occupying major cities of both empires, and has already wiped out the planets former fourth major power, the Air Nomads. The Fire Nation is showing no signs of stopping the war anytime soon, and have reason to believe that if they are not stopped soon," She took a breath. While the Quorum, like most of the fleet, was aware of bending and had, for the most part, accepted it as fact, the idea of spirits and the super natural was still laughed at. "A comet that is referred to by the natives as Solzins comet come into close proximity with the planet, and grant the Fire Nation another magnitude of power, and they will conquer the remaining cities."

The Quorom stared at her, uncertain for a moment. "A _comet_?" the woman who spoke before asked, with a slight hint of amusement in her voice. "A _comet _is going to come and help the Fire Nation win the war?"

"From what we can tell, yes." Kara responded.

"So, just to clarify," The woman began, "A comet that was launched into space one hundred years ago by a technologically primitive culture is going to come back to the planet, grant the Fire Nation the ability to fire bigger chunks of fire and lightning from their hands, and then they will win the war?"

Kara was about to respond before Adama stopped her. "Look, were not going to pretend to understand what's going on here, but we do know these people work in ways we don't understand. No, we don't know how these people can manipulate matter like they do, and no we don't know how a comet has influence on there abilities, but the facts are they _can _bend, they _did _launch the comet, and the other nations _will _be wiped out if we stand by and let them."

President Roslin spoke: "We have a theory that the thirteenth tribe somehow launched the comet, and that they lived on the planet one hundred years ago."

"So what happened to the thirteenth tribe then?"

"We don't know… we have a raptor out analyzing the comet now, hopefully that will provide some answers."

"The comet, while important, is not the primary topic of debate." Adama pointed out. "At this moment, the topic is what we do about the Fire Nation. And to help answer any questions we have about the planet, the three nations, and the war," William gestured at the three kids that had entered the room a minute ago. "This is Aang, Katara, and Sokka. Aang is known as the 'Avatar.' You'll find a description of what an Avatar is in the papers we handed out before the meeting. I'm assuming you've already read them."

Aang walked forward. "Hello..." He gave a weak wave as the twelve adults with uncertain faces gave him there full attention. "M-my name is Aang... I'm the Avatar. I know I'm just a kid, but please, listen to me. I can relate to you, my people were killed by the Fire Nation. I'm alone, like you are." I know the Earth and Water nations will welcome you.... He paused, one or two of the Quorum whispered to each other, only to receive the feared Adama Stare in response.

"Please, our people are dying, and your there only hope. I'm sure you can do something. Please?" The boy stepped back. Katara tried to comfort him.

Kara thrace stepped forward. "You've seen the documents. We know virtually every detail about the Fire Nation, the Earth Kingdom, and the Water Tribe, military wise. We can take out military targets without even leaving orbit, with zero chance of retaliation or resistance. And with the intimidation factor alone of being a space-faring race we have a major advantage. A captured prisoner, Azula, an apparently high-ranking member of the Fire Nation government was just released from custody, she's seen first hand what we can do. She paused and took a breath.

"If that alone doesn't cause them to back off, I have two dozen raptors and plenty of willing pilots and marines that say they will. And in return we would have half the planet eternally grateful to us. I agree with the kid: Lets burn _them_ for a change." She, to, stepped back.

The Quorum immediately started in a flurry of whispers, talks, arguments, and debates. Most of the words were unintelligible to the President and Admiral, though he could make out some of Lee's words. until finally what seemed like days later a man stepped up.

"Madam President... Admiral..." He looked at the boy, "Aang," He drew a breath.

"Survival is always the top discussion at these meetings. But what is often not called into question is if we are _worthy_ of that survival." Adama's attention doubled.

"Four years ago, before the Cylon attack, the admiral gave a speech asking us if we deserved to survive, that we still sinned, that we were still flawed. Now, we must ask the same of these people: what makes the Earth Kingdom more deserving of survival then the Fire Nation?"

"_What do you mean what makes-"_ Sokka yelled, before Roslin cut him off. "Continue."

"What your asking, is an atrocity. Your asking us to swoop in out of nowhere and finish a war that has been fought longer then the Cylons have existed, based on two months of iffy intelligence and a single recon mission. How do we know the events that started this war? How do we know the events that continue the war right now?"

The three teens stood in disbelief. Aang looked like he wanted to say something, but he couldn't come up with the words.

"Based on the intel received from the recon mission and intelligence from when we first arrived, both the nations we intend to save have commited crimes of unfathamable depths. Sexism, Racism..."

"Everything we went through five hundred years ago." Adama cut in. "There young, even we were like that at some point."

The man glanced down at his desk, uncertain, and continued. "Based on such little information, we can't just arbitrarily assume the Fire Nation is 'evil' and start killing. While the Fire Nations approach to Government does seem to be 'fear' based, as Azula stated, the Fire Nation treats captured cities surprisingly humanely. The city of Omashu was under Fire Nation occupation, however aside from a few strict rules it's better then many of our own histories treatment of other empires."

A woman next to the man spoke up: "Overall Fire Nation citizens are given far more rights then the average one living in the Earth Kingdom or Water Tribe. Some cities vote on issues or there rulers, and treatment of both genders is far more equal then what you might find elsewhere."

"The Fire Nation occupy the Earth Kingdom like the Cylons occupied New Caprica, " Lee pointed out, "Virtually all civil rights that they have are suspended and anybody who goes against them is executed."

"_What _civil rights? A quorum member said. "They don't have the right to vote, the Earth Kingdom prohibits any right to criticize the the government, so anybody trying to speak up for there rights is punished. Some parties are treated just short of _slavery-"_

"They killed our mother! Katara screamed out. "They killed everybody we knew!"

"You don't understand whats going on down there," Kara Thrace started. Normally it wasn't her place to speak to the Quorum, but nobody stopped her in this case. "If you'd seen first hand what life on the planet is like, you'd be just as eager as us to stop them."

"I'm sorry about your mother," The quorum member said to Katara with genuine sympathy, "But she could have been trying to kill them. We don't know of the events of your mothers death, for all we know. She could have been the one In the wrong."

Katara's face changed from sadness to anger. "How _dare _you accuse _our _mother of-"

Roslin silenced her. "This is getting a little to crazy. Please, summarize your view?"

The man drew another breath. "two months is simply not enough time to decide something as big as changing the balance of power of a planet. For all we know there right, and the fire nation must be stopped. But until we know more, we will not authorize such a war."

Before anybody had a chance to cut in, the woman stood up one last time. "And setting aside ethical issues, our resources are going to be stretched to the limits just setting up a colony and trying to survive the first few months. We don't have the resources to fight another war."

"Alright, so it's a vote." A third member named Tom Zarek said in a confident voice. "All in favor of war wih the Fire Nation?"

Lee Adama, as representative of Caprica, raised his hand.

"All opposed?"

Eleven hands shot into the air. The hearts of both Adama's, Kara, and the trio sank.

"It's decided. Until we know more about the politics of Earth we are staying out of there war. Now, onto the issue of planetary settlement. The small continent on the Northern section of the planets hemisphere seems ideal for..."

Adama stopped listening at this point. The trio were close to tears. Roslin removed her glasses and turned to him. "I can't believe it." She said.

Adama turned to Kara. "Take them back to Galactica. Get them some food. Try to make them comfortable, they still have work to do Later."

"Sir," Kara said, "This is frakked up, we can't just let-"

"We had a vote, and majority ruled. Do you think I want to follow there decision? If it were up to me we would be launching raptor squadrons right now. But we must honor our system of government if we want to say the Fire Nations is wrong. If we don't were just as bad as them."

"Sir-"

"You have your orders. I expect you to follow them. Dismissed." William Adama turned back to the Quorum.

Kara looked like she was about to argue, but knew better. She grabbed Katara's arm. "Let's go." She could hear the quorum discussing the issues as if there wasn't a war going on. As if people weren't dieing.

She cursed under her breath as she and the trio boarded the raptor back to Galactica.

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"They lied to us." Sokka said as he entered the trio's makeshift quarters aboard Galactica. The room used to be a storage area, but since Galactica was never meant to be a cruise ship guest quarters had long since been converted into areas more useful to fleet operations. The room had all the luxuries a normal guest area would have, three beds, a bathroom, running water, everything that would be considered luxuries reserved for a king in the Earth Kingdom. To the average Colonial Citizen it would seem to be in a run down and barely livable state.

"_You __said you would help us!" _Sokka yelled at Kara "You said you would stop the Fire Nation! I knew we should never have trusted them."

"The Qurom isn't known for there intelligence, I'm sure we can find some way to persuade them to change there mind, it's just going to take some time."

"_We_ _don't have time." _Sokka was yelling again. "The second the comet gets here all of the people were trying to help, that you _promised _to help are going to die, and it's going to be _all your fault."_

"Sokka, don't get mad at her." Katara said in a quiet, disappointed voice. "Kara's the only person who was trying to help us. It's not her fault."

"Did you hear what they said about mom? They said _she _did something wrong. Those low-life scum that these people chose to lead them are _nothing_." Sokka stomped to a couch, and sat down.

"I'm sorry about what they said." Kara knew the Quorum weren't the most rational of people, and that the fleet might have even been better over the years without them, "I have to go, but I'll do everything I can, I promise. You have no idea how often decisions get overturned or somebody changes there mind. And the second the rest of the fleet hears about this issue half of them are going to be demanding we help."

"Thanks for trying." Aang said as he sat down next to Sokka with a candy bar in his hand. "When can we leave?"

"I don't know, not yet, we still need your help with a few things, and-"

"So were prisoners?" Sokka asked.

"_No, _we just don't want you to leave, we still hope that you can-"

"Look, We've lost a lot of time finding Aang an Earth bending teacher, and that comets getting closer. We need to get back to _our _business, and we want to leave."

Aang turned to Sokka, "I think we should let them talk to us again."

"Why? They'll just lie to us again, all they care about is there own little issues."

Kara let out a sigh of disappointment. "Fine, I'll talk to the old man. But please, consider staying a little longer?" She was met with no response, and left.

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The Raptor landed gracefully on the dry ground beneath it. The air was thick with the smell of smoke and fire, and far into the distance you could see the the tallest buildings of the Fire Nation capitol standing in defiance against it's two mortal enemies.

Three people stepped out of the raptor. Two dressed in the standard marine armor and loadout, escorting the third: A woman dressed in her red-orange uniform, with her hands encased in the fireproof cuffs that left her powerless.

"The locks are set to turn off automatically in five minutes." The left guard handed her a backpack. "This is filled with water and rations, it should be enough to get you to the city. We've also included copies of the papers the President gave you earlier."

"Your going to pay for this." Azula said, wishing to be free from her restraints and aloud to kill the two that stopped her. She recognized one as one of the marines that helped assault the prison.

"Right. You better get going." With that, the two reentered the raptor, and ascended back into the stars.

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Azula watched the craft disappear into the sky, flying faster and higher then anything the Fire Nation ever built. She wondered if these people could actually destroy a comet, but waved the thought away. There were limits to even these peoples abilities. She layed down on the gruond, placed the backpack given to her under her head as pillow, and slept on the ground. Surprisingly is was more comfortable then the Galactica's brig.

Cavil hated meetings. He hated dealing with people. He hated himself. He hated the human body he was forced to live in. He envied the bullethead models in a way, almost immune to bullets and capable of far greater strength then even his enhanced Cylon abilities.

However, he was far more intelligent then those metal things, and he intended to use that to his advantage. He drew the last bits of information from the small pool of liquid of the Cylon Basestar. It meant dealing with less people: He wanted to know something, the ships database told him, no reading or talking required. Even 'skinjobs' as the humans called them had there advantages.

"Tell me Boomer," He said to the Asian girl sitting in the chair a few meters away from him, "What do you think of Earth?"

Boomer was the only model eight Cylon, the only Cylon of _any _model, ever, to go against the majority rule of it's model. Her tie breaking vote started the civil war and created the Cylon rebels. As a result she had earned a special place in Cavil's book, and they worked together in many circumstances.

"Whats there to say? Their humans. Humans that have been gifted with abilities that we don't understand."

"Abilities that the Fours and Fives want to know of." He added. While the fours had left there fleet to go who knows where, the few remaining ones that happened to be on other basestars at the time remained loyal. The Fives were doctors, and as per there programming were naturally curious about such things as bending.

"But still there humans." Cavil continued, "This should be a learning experience for you. You'll get to see how younger, more primitive humans are. They make even the Colonials look civil. You have no idea what evil there capable of." Cavil finished.

"How long until we arrive?"

"were just inputting attack coordinates into raiders using the DRADIS data acquired from the raider. Not long now."

"Good."

"It's nice to see you showing some enthusiasm." Cavil said sarcastically.

Expect another update very soon. I have about half of the next chapter written, the only reason I didn't include that bit is that with the story arc I want to do I would rather have the longer chapters.


	18. Chapter 18

I just wanted to say Thank you to everybody who has reviewed this story, and to everybody who helped beta this chapter. I've been getting a bad case of writers block and school has been keeping me busy. Here is a new chapter at last!

* * *

Three hours had passed since the quorums decision to ignore the Fire Nation had been passed. Within the next day the fleet would be made aware of the situation on the planet. The only reason they hadn't already was because, as much as Laura hated to admit it, The fleets desperate shortage of supplies _did _make settling on the surface a much higher priority at the moment then dealing with the Fire Nation. The two had walked back to Adama's personal quarters after the meeting, and had just arrived. Both entered the room with a look of defeat on there face. The ships were scheduled to begin landing twenty four hours from that moment.

"What to we do now?" Was Laura Roslin's first question.

"The Quorum made there decision." Admiral Adama Said with regret, "There's nothing we _can _do."

Roslin sat down on the bed in Adama's quarters. "Mabye there's something else we could have said, something Aang and the others left out. Mabye if we had put more effort into learning about the planet, if we sent more then one intel mission before calling the meeting..." Roslin was close to tears. "Bill, there _dieing _on that planet. There being killed off one city at a time. The quorum doesn't understand, they _can't _understand."

"No, they don't. But this isn't the end of the issue, the second the fleet sees whats going on down there people are going to want to do something about it. And fighting directly isn't the only way we can win this war. Galactica is a military asset, and technically Solzin's Comet is just a solar body. We can blow the thing to hell without the quorum permission." Adama loved Roslin, and would do everything he could to cheer her up, but he hadn't seen her like this in years, not since the horrible decision to settle on New Caprica.

"We'll have to wait and prey."

* * *

Lee walked down the corridors of the Galactica, occasionally passing by an officer carrying out some unknown to him task. Since the word that settlement would finally begin got out to the fleet, preparations had begun to get ships and supplies ready for landing. They couldn't have delayed settlement much longer regardless of the Quorums decision, as they would need to bring up supplies to help maintain the fleet, but it didn't help calm the younger Adama down.

He stopped at a door a piece of paper taped to it, the paper had 'Guest Quarters' written on it with a thick marker. They didn't have the time to spare to make a proper name plate for the makeshift quarters. He knocked on the door, and a moment later the small bald child he had come to know as Aang opened the door. "Hi Lee, what do you want?" His voice was low, as a contrast to his usual attitude.

"I just wanted to talk to you guys about whats going to happen." Lee watched Aang sigh, and open the door wider to let him in. Nobody else was in the room. "Where's Katara and Sokka?

"Kara took them somewhere, I don't know where. I didn't want to go.." Aang sat down in one of the chairs, while Lee preferred to stand. "So whats happening?"

"A few ships are going to start landing on the continent we picked out. From what we can tell it's pretty much uninhabited, so we shouldn't be bothering anybody, at least for now."

Aang took a moment to respond. "That's nice, I guess. Whats going to happen to us?"

"Thats actually what I really wanted to talk to you about." Lee sat in a chair next to Aang, and began. "We want you to stay. We could still use your help, we need to start talking to the three nations, and having you with us would go a long way to being on peaceful terms."

"But if we stay then I can't learn bending. Coming here took up a lot of time, and I need to find a way to defeat the Fire Lord before the comet gets here."

"Aang, look, I know your the Avatar, and your important to the planet, but your _twelve years old. _Katara and Sokka are just a little older then you. You can't expect to kill him all on your own." Lee noticed Aang's expression change as he said the word _'kill.'_

"What else are we supposed to do? If we sit around and wait the Fire Nation will destroy the Water and Earth Kingdom, so we have to try. We thought you could help us."

"I'm sorry about the Quorom, they aren't known for being rational, but you have to understand that a small group of rag-tag teenagers aren't going to stop a country as large and powerful as the Fire Nation. Even if you kill the Fire Lord, somebody will take his place, or smaller, independent powers will form, and you'll have to deal with this problem all over again."

Aang didn't respond.

"Aang, I know how you feel, but running away and fighting for some blind hope that-"

Before Lee could finish his sentence, Aang shot up from his chair, faced Lee, and started yelling. "_NO. You DON'T Know how I FEEL. _The Fire Nation came and killed each and every person I ever knew, and every place my people lived was destroyed. When the Cylons attacked at least _you still had a family. _You had your dad, and Kara, and everybody in that fleet! I lost _everything. _And when I finally woke up a hundred years later and saw what the Fire Nation had done, the only people that helped me were Katara and Sokka. You've had it _easy _compared to me, and-"

"_At least you had your species!" _This time Lee cut Aang off. He paused momentarily, and continued. "_You think I had it easy? Do you know what I've had to do over four years? If you had any idea what I've done..." _He took a breath. "When we first started running, The Cylons tracked us for hundreds of jumps, we went for days without sleep or rest, until we learned that the Cylons had somehow gotten a device onto one of the civilian ships that helped them follow us. There wasn't time to do anything about the people on the ship, the Cylons were still following us, every jump there was a chance they would kill us. So I did the only thing I could to stop them: _I destroyed the ship." _Aang was silent.

"There were over a thousand people on that ship. We didn't have time to get any of them off. Once it was gone we managed to hide from the Cylons for a time, but that was only weeks after the Fall of the Colonies. Since then I've had to leave good people behind, or kill to save people that are younger then you. I left tens of thousands of people behind on the planet New Caprica when the Cylons found us, and I wanted to leave each and every one of them behind, and if I had my way there wouldn't _be _a fleet outside of those bulkheads."

Aang had sat down by now.

"You had places to rest, a town to find safe harbor. We've been on the run non-stop for longer then you've been trying to stop the Fire Lord. So if you think we've had it _easy _your dead wrong."

There wasn't a sound for the new few moments, until the door Lee had gone through opened, letting Katara and Sokka walk in. Katara noticed Lee and waved to him. "Kara took us to get something to eat, She's outside the door if you want to talk to her. She noticed Aang sitting in the chair with a horrified expression on his face, it disturbed her. "Aang are you ok?" She never got a response. Sokka started saying something, but Lee wasn't paying attention as he left the room. He ran over to meet up with Kara, who was just leaving herself.

"Did we miss something?" She asked, amused. "We must have if we heard yelling from the other side of the wall."

"Not much. I'm just not that good with kids."

Cavil was going through the logs recovered by the raider for the third time. _Any minute now it'll all be over. _He thought to himself. Humanity had caused enough of a setback for the Cylon race already, he didn't want to waste time erasing their DNA from the universe. He heard the door to his chamber opening, and removed his hand from the computer interface. Boomer walked in.

"What have I told you about knocking?" Cavil said it in a tone that made Boomer unsure if he was joking or serious. "Sit down, what did you need?"

Boomer took a seat in front of Cavil. "Were about ready to attack the planet." She began.

"Oh, really? I thought we'd decided to set that back a few days to make time for the afternoon tea party with Four and Five. _Of course _were just about ready, what did you come here for?"

"We'll... I've been thinking. We've caught up to the fleet before, a number of times. But every time we find them, they just jump away."

"Their a very persistent species. But this time we have an advantage we haven't had before. Thanks to the raider's computer records we know _exactly _where they'll be down to the meter. And they wont just abandon the people on the planet. Humans have such a sense of _honor _and _bravery. _They wont let those poor little primitive people on the planet die, even if it means fighting an unwinable battle."

"That wasn't what happened at New Caprica. Remember what happened then?"

"I'm talking typical human behavior, not special cases. They won't get away this time."

"This _is _a special case, given there situation is always has been. The point is we need a backup plan n case they do manage to jump away."

Cavil paused, and sighed In submission. "Fine, I'll humor you. What did you have in mind?"

"There's a comet that's generating the signal that lured the humans here in the first place. Their a curious species, and will defiantly send a ship to investigate it."

"Go on." Cavil said impatiently.

"We send a small wing of raiders to hide by the comet. When a ship jumps in, they disable it, capture it, and bring it back here. We can crack open the computer and get the coordinates the fleet plans to jump to in case of an emergency. We station a basestar and a wing of raiders at those coordinates, and if the fleet jumps away, we'll still have them."

Cavil thought about it for a few moments, and clapped his hands together. "Fine. If it'll make you happy, I'll have two raiders jump to the comet and keep an eye open. If they don't find anything within a day, we'll begin the attack anyway. Deal?

_We'll, at least he went for it. _"Thank you." With that, Boomer stood up, and walked out the door.

Cavil put his hand back in the computer interface, and started pulling up the subroutines used for controlling the raiders. _I've waited four years, whats one more day?_

_

* * *

  
_

Outside the hull of the _Galactica,_two smaller ships broke their formation with the Colonial fleet. The two smaller ships were Gemenon Travelers, a class that was considered a light transport at the time of the Fall of the Colonies. The smaller ships had been retrofitted with different gear for there new assignment, devices to measure everything from the average temperature to how often you might expect an Earthquake. Their purpose was to analyze their new home.

The two ships came to a landing on the planets surface, on the continent that would be there new home. Since the decision to finally settle had been made, a debate had sparked among the fleet about what to call the landmass. The natives of the planet weren't aware of it yet, and so didn't have there own person suggested _New New Caprica _as the name of the first city, while another suggested _Pythias, _after the Scrolls of Pythia, the religious documents that told the tail of the mythical thirteenth tribe of man: Earth. Other suggested names were_ New Gemenon, New Scorpia, _the odd name '_Atlantis'__**, **_and a number of others. Perhaps a decision would be reached by the time the ships returned to the fleet.

The landmass was twelve hundred miles across, and was shaped like a croissant. It was located towards on the northern hemisphere of the planet, with the southern parts just reaching the equator. Lush forests made up most of the middle, while you could see the faint white glow of snow on the northern tip. The area between was covered in mountains. To the south the area was still relatively wet, compared to other areas near the equator, but streaks of brown desert were still plainly visible to the approaching craft. Off the coast, dozens of small islands made up a network of land stretching up to a hundred miles off the shore.

The two ships broke off from each other towards there final approach, one went to the Northern section of the landmass, while the other went south to explore the warmer regions.

As the northern bound ship landed on the surface, one Laura Roslin stepped out. People were already gathering equipment and setting up shop. A group was collecting water samples from a nearby river to test in the ship. Another was surveying the land scape, checking the stability of the ground, making sure nothing too heavy would cause a landslide, or that a sudden Earthquake wouldn't tear the future city apart.

Roslin stepped down onto the surface, and took a breath of fresh air. Behind her, The quorum of Twelve – minus Lee Adama, who had business to attend to on the fleet – stepped out one by one, talking amongst themselves.

This was it. Home. After four years, this is where they would end up. It would be a perfect spot for a city, near a river, not too far from a forest, plenty of fertile ground for farming. It seemed perfect, a place to settle, away from the Cylons... or at least away from the Cavilist ones, anyway. She walked over to the river, bent down, and put her hand in the water. A real stream. New Caprica had been a barren landscape, only marginally habitable, nothing even remotely like the ground beneath her. The water felt good. She stood up and turned around, only to be greeted by a dark skinned women with long hair, her aid Tori Foster.

"Hello Tori, sorry, I.. I didn't see you coming."

Tori mustered a smile, "I'm still your aid. The press is demanding you talk. When are the rest of the ships coming down, how long until construction begins, something."

"Well, tell them to shove their microphones up their-"

"_Maddam President, _not now, please. It's been a long trip, you can't blame them."

"Roslin looked down. "Unfortunately not, it would be nice to be able to blame somebody." Tori gave Roslin a confused look. "What? Blaming the Quorum at this point just seems redundant."

"I'm afraid I don't follow."

Roslin let out a breath. "I'm sorry, I'm just still shaken from the quorums last session. I'm having a hard time enjoying our good fortune while the rest of the planet is at war, and we can do so much to stop it, but we won't."

"They didn't really get the time to think it over that decisions that big normally get. Back at the Colonies we would've had some long, drawn out meeting involving a large number of very boring individuals all saying basically the same thing in a slightly different way, and spend two hours having a private talk until finally reaching the unanimous decision that they need more time."

"We don't have that luxury here. I never thought I'd miss those meetings back on Caprica."

"I never thought I'd miss stepping outside, but look at me now."

The joke did little to cheer Roslin up. Roslin looked up at Tori again. "You didn't see what it was like, in Omashu. The stories Aang's told are only a fraction of whats been going on, and he's had it easy compared to some of the people out there." Roslin looked up at the sky, and pointed east. "About three thousand miles down that way is the main super continent of the planet. The Fire Nation is fighting their war right down there. And we can end it whenever we want, but we won't, because some frakked up system of government decided to elect twelve moronic figures to decide how to rule our civilization." Roslin corrected herself to exclude Lee. " Eleven, anyway"

"It's that same system of government that put you in charge." Tori added. She was meet with a glare in response. "I know what you mean Laura, but it's not our war. What right do we have to stop it?"

"I know that their wars are none of our business, but..." She took a breath. "What if some alien race was watching over the Colonies during the attack? What if they could have stopped the Cylons, but they didn't, because it didn't concern them? They would allowed the genocide of fifty _billion _people just because they didn't feel like helping. It seems like more of a crime to do nothing then to let the nations of the planet sort themselves out."

"Even if we _wanted _to help, we need to set our priorities. The demand of taking on an empire spanning an entire planet, even one as primitive as the Fire Nation would take a massive commitment of resources, and supplies are tight as it is."

"I heard the same argument back on Colonial One, and my response is the same. We can barter for supplies from Water and Earth kingdom cities in exchange for protection. We _can _help them."

"I wish that we could do something Laura, but it isn't our place. We have to accept that, if we help them now, we would have an obligation to help rebuild, and from there to try to keep the peace, if we get involved now we'll set our selves up to be the caretakers of the planet. We simply can't take on that kind of responsibility."

Laura was about to respond when the Quorom member Tom Zarek barged in., "Maddam President, the rest of the quorum are meeting with the press right now to finalize plans for the first city, we need you to come."

Laura took one last look at Tori. "We can't simply let things be." And with that, she walked off with Zarek.

* * *

"Are you sure you didn't just eat too many of those Jaffa berries by the prison gates?"

Azula rolled her eyes, and buried her head in her hands in frustration. Since she had made her way back to the Fire Nation capitol, she had explained her story a four times. Once to the prison guards who escorted her to the upper floor, once to her father, and the Fire Lord, Ozai, once to the Royal Court who had been hastily assembled to hear her tale, and now once again to her father. Nobody seemed to believe her.

"Jaffa berries don't break an Earth Kingdom king out of a prison, they don't kill ten Fire Nation guards, they dion't make you go missing for a number of days, and they don't hand you a large, thick envelope filled with papers written in some magic ink that -

"You do have a point..."

"_Father, _in the past two months we have had _two _attacks on Fire Nation Territory's from a completely unknown enemy, starting after the skyships started landing on the planet! One right in the heart of the Fire Nation capitol, and one the recently occupied city of Omashu. Both times people who saw the visitors described them as carrying weapons unlike anything we've ever seen, and departing in ships that could go so fast even the Avatar could never hope match them!"

"Lets say the papers you brought back are real. We've had our experts read them a number of times. They demands they are making are _insane. _Your not suggesting we _listen _to these '_Colonials,' _are you?"

"I'm _suggesting _we try to talk to them instead of trying to enforce our rules on them. I've seen what kind of technology they have, and if they wanted to they could wipe this city off the planet in a second, but they haven't. They want to _talk _to us, and I think we should be nice to the visitors if we don't want to end up like the Air Nomads."

Her father always had a temper. If anybody _dared _question the superiority of the Fire Nation they usually a quick death, if he was in a good mood. When sky ships suddenly appeared, and people carrying technology far beyond anything that the Fire Nation was even thinking of experimenting with started shooting in the capitol, it was almost incomprehensible to him. "Your not saying they would actually _carry out _these threats?"

"I'm saying we should leave them be, and listen to them _for now _while trying to acquire as much information about them as possible. Mabye we can even steal a piece of there craftsmanship. We still have the craft the first team landed near the capitol in storage, we could return it in exchange for something."

"What makes you think they won't simply take it by force?"

"Because they haven't already, and if they had the means they would have done so. Either they don't know where it is, or actually consider the forces protecting it _a threat._" Can you imagine what their technolegy could do for the Fire Nation? Even if we had a quarter of what they had, this war would be over in under a week! I know that they have a tiny population compared to us, their the last of there kind, if we play along for a while until they've let their guard down, we can strike and wipe them out."

"The idea of Fire Nation skyships... and even starships, does seem very promising."

"They said that they would send an ambassador to each of the nations to discuss their terms in detail 48 hours after dropping me near the city, which gives us time to prepare."

"Indeed it does... Fine. I'll discuss this with the rest of my subordinates and start making preparations. In the mean time you get some rest, I imagine you haven't slept in a proper bed for some time."

"Thank you." As Azula left the room, she still felt fear over what would happen. For the first time in history, another force outmatched the Fire Nation in every conceivable way, with the ability to strike anyplace, at anytime, without fear of retaliation, was a threat even the arrogant Fire Nation couldn't ignore. The next few weeks would be very interesting.

* * *

**Running. Analyzing. Executing. Unable to confirm... Compensating. reanalyzing. Confirmed. Data found.. Running. Data downloaded. Checking... Uploading.**

_It's about frakking time. _The Six thought to herself. The Six ignored the semi-coherent ramblings of the Hybrid, the ships 'computer' running through the data from the raider. At last they finally had a full report.

The last two weeks were uneventful to the extreme, with nothing to do but watch the humans learn more about the planet. Given the Cylons less-then-friendly nature, they took the recommendation to stand by and wait to see where to settle. It made the humans shudder to think what would happen if _they _tried to make contact. But with the analysis of the escaped raider complete, there was finally something to do.

The woman placed her hand in the liquid data matrix, and waited as the information was uploaded to her brain. She paused as she always did while the information transfered, going from a machine to an organic format, but still ending up in another machine. When the transfer was complete she gathered her thoughts, sifting through the new data that she had just retrieved. It was like trying to remember a dream, or recalling a long forgotten memory, at first you only have bits and pieces, but slowly come together until you get the full picture.

Then she panicked.

_No, it can't be. We made sure that couldn't happen. We triple checked everything, made sure nothing could go wrong. The data must be flawed, the raider was the result of a command malfunction, nothing more..._

If she was right and the raider blind jumped after receiving a random command from a damaged computer, then it most likely ended up inside a star from not jumping to specific coordinates. But if she was wrong,

The horror was to great to ignore.

She sprinted to get to the command center, the 'CIC' of the Basestar,

Two eights and another Six were there to greet her. "Whats wrong?" An eight asked. "You didn't have to run, whats the matter?"

The Six took a precious moment to catch her breath, she was exhausted, then began. "The data... from the raider..." She said between gasping for air, "Download it, now. Something went very wrong."

The two Eights looked at each other in confusion, then the one that spoke walked up to a data terminal and began the download.

"At the resurrection hub..." The Six began again, "That heavy raider, it was one of the ships that landed, when we were trying to get D'anna. While it was there, the Hub must have linked to it, downloaded a new piece of software. One designed to give it a special set of instructions."

"Thats impossible." The other Six started, "We changed the command codes, and purged everything that Cavil put into the computer."

The eight that started the downloading the data finished her work, and her expression changed from confusion to horror. "Cavil must have disguised the program in the raiders automatic software. Made it look like it was just another bit of ordinary coding, so when we changed the command codes it was already to late."

"What was the program designed to do?" The six that ran in asked.

"It downloaded our computer. Jump coordinates, nav logs, DRADIS records, and jumped to a specific location."

"To Cavil." The opposite Eight said. "So they know where we are.."

The Six, who had recovered fully, spoke with a voice of authority. "Get D'anna up here, and raise the Galactica, get Admiral Adama."

* * *

"Hey, I've got something." Sharon sounded astounded at her good fortune. "Something in the rock is defiantly giving off a signal."

Helo checked his readers along with her, just barely keeping up. "Can you tell what it is?"

"No... No it's to weak to tell right away, but it's a tight wave signal thats moving at an accelerated rate."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning somebody broadcasted the signal so that we could only detect it while in the _exact _spot we were at before the jump to Earth." She checked her readings again. "It's looping itself every few seconds, I can't tell if it's just a beacon, or some sort of transmission."

"Can we decode it? I mean, signal analysis isn't my specialty."

"We can record it using the raptors instruments, but we need to use one of the more modern computers in the fleet to decode it. Mabye the Cylons have a computer fast enough. Give me a second to record it." She tapped a few buttons on her console. "This'll take a minute."

"I'll spool up the jump drives in the mean time. I can't wait to get home."

"I can't wait to finally figure out why somebody decided to send us a message via a flying rock."

"We we get back, I heard a rumor that Adama was organizing another team to head to the planet. If that turns out to be true mabye we should try to-" he was interuppted by a beeping sound made by his console.

"Whats wrong?" She watched as Helo's expression changed from confused to horrified.

"Dradis contact! Two small objects bearing Karem one-seven mark eight, judging by the size I'm guessing... Cylon raiders."

"_Cylons? Here?" _Sharon's face began to mimic Helo's. "How the _frak _did they find us? They would only find the signal if they were in the _exact _sector of space down to the kilometer!"

"Unless our Cylon frieds gave them a hint..." There wasn't time to speculate. The Cylons had found them. If they knew where the planet was, _and they almost certainly do, _Helo knew, the entire fleet was at risk. And the planet... their new home. "I'll try to evade them, mabye they haven't seen us yet." His hopes were shattered as the two contacts started accelerating, and headed straight for them.

"I've got the data, lets get the hell out of here."

"FTL is still spooling, it'll take another thirty seconds to charge!" The two raiders flanked the raptor, one moving in from the front, one trying to block them off. The closer one accelerated, going in for the shot. Helo broke starboard, trying to dodge as the raider opened up with it's forward cannons. A three second burst of fire exploded from the small ship, all just barely missing. Helo shifted course upward and towards the comet, thinking he might be able to use it as cover for the last few vital seconds.

"Fifteen!"

One raider went full throttle, trying to cut the raptor off. The other went in close, right behind it. In reality both ships had clear shots and could have destroyed it at will, but that was not their objective. Their goal was to damage and capture the craft, not destroy it.

The closer raider took selected shots, aiming for the aft engine. The first few the raptor dodged, but the ship was larger and less mauverable, and Helo could only do so much before the raider got a few lucky shots at his engines.

"_FRAK!" _He swore, and slammed his hands on the controls.

"Just tell me we still have FTL."

"Yes... Just barely, but the normal engines are fraked, were drifting."

Sharon closed her eyes. They were an easy target. There was nothing to do but wait and hope that...

"_Jump!"  
_

The raptor vanished, and after a momentary flash of light Helo and Sharon found themselves in orbit of the green-blue orb of Earth.

"I can't move us at all, were being pulled into the planets gravity!"

"Raise Galactica, the Cylons only need a few minutes before jumping in."

Helo hastily put on his headset and slammed his fist on the Push to Talk button. "Galactica, Galactica do you read?" He was met only with static. "Galactica this is raptor 217, we've been attacked by Cylon raiders, The Cylons _Know where we are, _Galactica can you hear us?"

"The comms shot." Sharon cried out. "We can't hear them, but prey they can hear us."

"Frak, we've only got a few minutes before we hit the planet and we can't warn the fleet that the Cylons are on their way!" He started going through his console, figuring what worked at didn't. "Damnit there must be _something _we can do!"

"Comms are out, There isn't anything we can do but wait."

Helo tried a number of tasks, including another attempt to raise the Galactica, but eventually put the head set down in submission. "Do the Cylons have any kind of special prayer?"

* * *

"The waters good for drinking, but we should still filter it to get rid of anything in the planets ecosystem we haven't identified yet. We have no idea what kind of new bacteria might exist on the planet and I don't think we should take any risks until we've gotten a more thorough look at it"

Laura Roslin sat with the Quorom and a team of people who had been tasked with surveying the land, to make sure it was safe to build a city on or near. So far they'd confirmed that the temperature would remain at comfortable levels, and had just gone over whether or not the water was drinkable.

"And the tectonic plates are arranged in a manner that prohobits major earthquakes, but we might expect a few tremors occasionally. Volcanic activity is at a minimum, and no natural disasters to worry about for the moment. But since we have no previous record of the planets weather we can't say anything for certain until after a few years have passed."

"We'll, we can't wait a few years. Roslin looked to the women in charge. "So as far as you can tell, this would be an ideal place for a city?"

"Yes ma'am. Oh, and the xenobiologist we brought down from the surface has started categorizing some of the wildlife, we don't know if the natives have names for any of them. He also wishes to inform you that he hasn't found any _spirits _since we've landed."

The joke was meant to point out the absurdity of what they had been told to expect. Most of the fleet still had trouble accepting that what the Colonials could only describe as magic was commonplace on the world below, an ironic fact considering that it was a supernatural force that guided them to the planet in the first place. "We'll, that's good to hear.. we should inform the rest of the fleet and-" A woman walked into the room, and spoke to Roslin for a moment. "It appears there's some kind of emergency in the fleet, and I need to return to Galactica. In the mean time have the southern ship relay it's finding to my office on Colonial One, I'll look over them later." As Roslin left, she heard the quorom start congratulating eachother on there luck, a sucessful find on their first attempt.

She boarded the raptor waiting for her outside the ship, and waited as the craft docked in the massive battlestar's hanger bay.

* * *

Admiral Adama entered the CIC of the Galactica with a scowl on his face. He had been taking a shower, a luxury he had been using more often with the fresh water being ferried from the planet, at the time he got the call, a fact one could easily tell by his still damp hair. The marines guarding the door saluted as he, passed, acknowledging a superior officer. He walked up to the main Dradis display just as President Roslin walked into the room herself.

"Whats going on?" Adama asked, quickly glancing at the Dradis display, and noticing one extra contact, a raptor drifting towards the planet.

"The raptor we sent to scout out the system jumped back five minutes ago. Their not responding to comms and are drifting towards the planet." Tigh raised his eyes. "_Two _major systems failing on a ship tested twice a week and every time before launch."

"Somethings wrong." Adama gazed at the raptor once more, and said without looking away, "If engines went down Helo would never jump the ship that close to a planet without damn good reason, even without communications they could have dropped a nav beacon and we could have sent a recovery ship."

"Unless they didn't have a choice in jumping." Adama looked to Tigh. "Bill, were still missing one raider from the Cylon ship they've been taking their sweet time giving us an answer to"

"No, I don't care what the rest of the fleet says, I trust the rebels, at least enough not to start shooting us when were their only means of protection. And even if they decided to go hostile, a random attack against a strategically unimportant raptor would be a bad idea."

Roslin stepped into the conversation: "So, an enemy force that was _not _launched by the rebels attacked one of our raiders and disabled it before it jumped away." She paused before concluding her statement, "If it wasn't them, The only other force we know of that would launch an attack would be-"

"The Cavilists." Tigh finished her sentence for her. The fraking toasters know where we are!" he shouted, silencing the CIC momentarily, an act that had been accomplished very few times over the past four years.

_How the frak did they find us? _Adama thought as he started yelling, "Lieutenant Geata, raise the Cylon ship immediately!"

"Uh, There's no need to, sir," Geata tapped a few controls. "Their hailing _us._"

"Put them through, and have the fleet double check to make sure everyone has the latest emergency jump coordinates." He watched Geata nod as acknowledgment, and grabbed the speaker from the Dradis display. Roslin and Saul Tigh picked up there own.

D'anna's voice came through the speaker. _"Admiral, the Cylons, They know where we are."_

"We think we figured that out about two minutes ago, how the hell did they find us?"_  
_

"_It's hard to explain, but the heavy raider that escaped, they hacked it somehow, at the Resurrection Hub. The point is they know everything down to our DRADIS record and navigation logs."_

The three exchanged horrified glances. Adama removed the phone from his ear and covered the speaker so the Cylons couldn't hear. "The raptor _was _attacked by Cavil. Get a recovery team out there, I want them back inside Galactica as soon as possible." Tigh grabbed his phone and started yelling out orders to the hanger deck.

Adama raised the speaker to his ear. "Do you have any idea where the raider might have jumped to, or how far away the Cavilist forces might be?"

"_No. Admiral, you must understand we've just found out ourselves. In time we might be able to decode Cavil's program and figure out where the ship was programmed to jump, but he did a good job of purging our computer of what little evidence of the program there was."_

"And by the time we figure that part out the Cylons will be right on top of us." Adama pointed out. He put the speaker down again and turned to the seat Gaeta was in. "recall both surface teams from the planet and have the fleet-"

"Dradis Contact!" At that moment, all forty people in the CIC of the Battlestar Galactica turned to Feelix Gaeta, who was double and triple checking his readouts. "Three small objects two thousand kilometers away, judging from there size I'm guessing Cylon raiders."

"The bastards were right." Tigh raised his voice so the CIC could hear him. "Launch the alert vipers and set main batteries to target the leading-"

"Belay that." Adama contradicted the colonel, and started going through his options.

Tigh stared at Adama in disbelief. "Bill, if we don't start getting ready to fight they'll kill us off in one blow and be on there way!"

"If we stay and fight we can say goodbye to our species, were out gunned ten to one."

"They found us..." Laura Roslin's sentence dragged on. The Cylons didn't just have the Colonial fleet and the rebel Cylons, they had Earth.

Adama watched the main Dradis display over the central console as the three raiders moved closer, scanning and confirming there location, and jumped away. "Have all civilian ships spool up there FTL and jump to emergency coordinates." As the admiral was finishing his sentence, two dozen more contacts showed up on Dradis. Four were larger, powerful ships that were easily identifiable as Cylon baseships. The rest were groupings of standard and heavy raiders.

"Wait, were just going to _leave?" _Laura pleaded. "There are millions of innocent people on that planet who were never involved in our war. If we leave, they'll be slaughtered."

"If we stay, _we'll _be slaughtered."

"Bill for once I agree with the president, at the very least try to even the odds a bit."

Four years ago, when the Cylons had attacked the Twelve Colonies, Adama made the decision to run. They left behind any possible survivors and headed for the very planet they were orbiting. At New Caprica, when the Cylons showed up he made the decision to run again, to leave behind over fourty thousand people to fend for themselves against the Cylon occupation. And now he was running again. Only this time he wan't abandoning his own people, he was abandoning millions of people who had never heard the word Cylon, who wouldn't be in this kind of danger if it wasn't for him. At least back on New Caprica the people he left behind knew what they were getting into... here nobody had even heard of them.

"It's _our _fault the Cylons are here." _The cylons will kill every last person on that planet... and it's going to be our fault. Aang, Katara, Sokka, every person on the planet we've meet was afraid the Fire Nation would end there lives... now they have something far worse to fear._

Adama ignored Roslin, and raised the speaker to his ear once more. "We've ordered the Civilian ships to jump, we suggest you do the same."

"_Were already spooling up... Don't do anything stupid admiral." _With that, the baseship disappeared from the Dradis screen.

"Wait, what about the raptor drifting towards the Cylons, We won't be able to recover it in time."

Sharon and Helo were on that Raptor. Two people whom had earned the admirals trust and friendship. "There's nothing we can do." He said, lookings straight at the main Dradis display as the dozens of dots representing fighters closed in on _Galactica. _The four basestars were moving in other directions, around the planet. They were preparing to strike at the surface. "They have the coordinates for where were jumping, if they still have their FTL They'll follow us."

"Bill, if we stay here any longer..." Tigh didn't have to explain what would happen.

The world seemed to grind to a halt. _There going to die. _He thought to himself. _Millions of people... Sharon, Helo... _He brought himself back to reality, and yelled out his order: "Jump to emergency coordinates!"

The raiders were just launching there initial strike on the battlestar when the ship vanished in a flash of light.

There was dead silence on the CIC of the Galactica. People hesitated, each one person slowly realizing the magnitude of what they had done, what they had brought. It took a minute for the crew to begin what normally started the second after a jump: Scan the area, check for Cylons, and make sure every civilian ship was accounted for.

Aang, Katara, and Sokka were still waiting in there makeshift quarters for news. They were still expecting to get a ride home, they weren't aware of the events that had occurred over the last few minutes. They were unaware that a nightmare a thousand times greater then the Fire Nation had just come to there world.

"Lords of Kobol," Roslin got out, as she started crying, mourning for the souls on the planet. "What have we done?"

* * *

Azula watched over the Capitol city of the Fire Nation from the highest balcony in the city, located on the top floor of the palace. It was a nice view, but one that got boring after awhile. Her father was off on some important meeting, and that once again left her with nothing to do. Sure her journey to the starships would make an interesting story to tell, but she didn't feel like telling a tale that eventually came down to a race of people capturing her, taking her to their ships, making demands, and dropping her off, and there wasn't a thing she could do about it, didn't make her feel comfortable.

She made her way down to the lower floors where her room was and started trying to get to sleep again. She failed, and started looking out her bedroom window. A tiny speck appeared in the sky, only just visible from the reflection of sunlight bouncing off of it. Azula thought little of the thing, it was too far away to be of any importance. What she did not know was that the craft was something far worse than anything she could have imagined: The sleek design of a Cylon raider.

The ship flew overhead, and then shot upwards. After a few seconds it disappeared to anybody viewing the sky with the naked eye. It's effect on the city, however, was noticeable to everybody in the Fire Nation moments later.

A blast of light, brighter then the sun, brighter then anything she had seen, brighter then anything _anyone _had ever seen, detonated at the edge of the city.. Azula cried out in pain as she was momentarily blinded from the light of the nuclear explosion, causing her to look away and cover her eyes. The explosion spread across the earth around the city, as she felt the ground shake beneath her, in strength comparable to an Earthquake. She quickly lost her balance and slammed into the floor, the carpet doing little to soften her fall. With her eyes still closed tightly she moved her hands to cover her ears, a sound unlike anything she had ever heard made her ears bleed. A burning sensation moved across her body as a glancing blow from the outer shock wave moved across her body. She started crying, something she had never done before, crying in fear for the first time in her life. Fear of the destruction she had just witnessed, fear for what had happened to her people, fear and confusion as to why this had been done.

Though she couldn't see it, she could feel the shockwave of the blast slamming into the palace. The ground shook even more violently and the wall exploded, sending debris in every direction. Azula felt a pain in her left leg, a stick of wood had impacted it. She knew she was bleeding, but could do nothing about it.

The pain stopped only when she had lost consciousness . Had she been able to think, she would have been grateful for the relief.

The explosion was one of dozens around the Earth. In the Earth Kingdom, Hundreds of thousands cried out in pain as Ba Seng Sa and the city of Omashu were destroyed in flashes of light. In the Water Tribe, the ice cities built by water benders were reduced to nothing from the intense heat of dozens of nuclear detonations. Around the planet, cities were reduced to ash and people unlucky enough to have survived were crippled beyond any hope. Nobody was in a position to help. Nobody was aware of how much death and chaos could be brought even _after _the bombs had faded away, as radiation killed off most of what remained.

And to those cities to small to be worth nuking, conventional explosives dropped from high orbit softened the ground, making way for occupation of what little remained untouched. Cavil wanted survivors. His race was no longer immortal, and these people had powers that, if he didn't know better, he would describe as magic. Maybe they could help him, some obscure piece of there genetic code that would unlock the human-form Cylons ability to reproduce.

Cavil watched from space. The larger nuclear detonations were visible from orbit, as one by one a city vanished, a town destroyed, a once proud nation reduced to a shadow of what it was. Humanities children had taken there revenge once more. Cavil relished in his victory.


End file.
